Content provided in partnership with

Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, The

ASEE Prism, Dec 1999 by Feisel, Lyle

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence

By Ray Kurzweil. Viking Press; 1999; 388 pp., $25.95. Reviewed by Lyle Feisel

We all know-more or less-what has happened to computing in the past 20 or 30 years. Now, how about the next 20 or 30? Or 50 or 100? While this is a very big question, Ray Kurzweil takes it on with gusto and confidence. And well he might. The predictions in his 1990 book, The Age of Intelligent Machines, have largely come true, so why not take a crack at the next century?

Most Popular Articles in Reference: The importance of understanding organizational culture; Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students; What factors attract foreign direct investment?; Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...; How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques; More »

If you were to read the penultimate chapter of The Age of Spiritual Machines first, you might conclude that you were reading a work of science fiction. Most of the conditions described seem, shall we say, a bit on the wild side. If, however, you start at the beginning and follow the predicted evolution of computing throughout the next century, the technological leaps seem more plausible.

For starters, Kurzweil predicts the demise of Moore's Law by about 2020. Moore's Law-which states that every two years, at a given cost, there will be a doubling of both the amount of computing circuitry and the speed at which the circuitry operates-- has held true for the past three decades or so. When it finally does fall, however, Kurzweil predicts that it will be replaced not by a slower rate of growth, but by an even faster one.

The author captures this concept in his Law of Accelerating Returns: "As order exponentially increases, time exponentially speeds up (that is, the time interval between salient events grows shorter as time passes)." In an evolutionary process, where knowledge can be transmitted and hence accumulated, this seems to make sense. Conclusion? Computers-or perhaps we should say computing capability-will grow at an accelerating exponential rate. As a consequence of the explosion of computing capability, Kurzweil describes other predicted technological innovations-such as nanobots, sensory implants, and remote tactile communication-an advance with many possibilities.

The big leap, however, centers on the adjective in the book's title-spiritual. If one takes a purely mechanistic view of the human brain as an enormous collection of biological neurons, one may conclude that a similarly enormous collection of silicon or carbon "neurons" can emulate or duplicate the functions of that brain. One of the functions of that brain is to develop a sense of consciousness, i.e., self-awareness. Once an entity is conscious, we may presume that it will develop emotions, desires, personality, and the other manifestations of what we have referred to as our humanity, including-why not?-spiritual experience. This premise will, of course, find many more critics than the purely technical predictions. (Since the accumulation of years does tend to increase humility-or at least discretion-this writer will not voice an opinion on the issue.)

To help explain his points, the author employs a very effective technique, whereby he "converses" with a fictional person in each chapter.

"Molly" asks many of the questions that the reader is likely to want answered. But Kurzweil does not have her ask only questions that he can answer; as the book progresses, some questions arise that are not resolved. In part, this happens because Molly ages and evolves within the time frame of the book, while the author stays in the present. Note the use of the word "evolves." One of the book's predictions is that human bodies will be technically augmented with much more active components and that the interface between an individual's brain and his or her computer will become very diffuse. Evolution therefore takes on a slightly different, or at least expanded, meaning.

This book will probably be heavy going for the technological laity, but engineers and computer scientists would do well to give it a read. The technical predictions are interesting and the question of machine spirituality intriguing. As the creators of technology, we should be interested in both.

Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, The

ASEE Prism, Dec 1999 by Feisel, Lyle

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Reference

Most Popular Articles in Reference

Most Popular Publications in Reference