A Debate over Kurzweil's book: "The Age of Spiritual Machines"
Link to the original article
Key points
- Kurzweil does predictions on the future of human kind and it’s relations with machines in twenty to thirty years from now.
Up to now, his predictions appeared to be true. Humans are not sure if they want to believe in these scary visions of our future. That maybe why many are contradicting his work to clear their mind of these possibilities.
- Kurzweil does predictions on the future of human kind and it’s relations with machines in twenty to thirty years from now.
Up to now, his predictions appeared to be true. Humans are not sure if they want to believe in these scary visions of our future. That maybe why many are contradicting his work to clear their mind of these possibilities.
- medical advances that will allow people to radically extend their lifespans
- a computer will pass the Turing test by 2029.
- the first strong artificial intelligence will be a computer simulation of a human brain generated by nanorobotic brain scanning.
- sentient artificial intelligences will exhibit moral thinking and respect humans
- the line between humans and machines will blur as machines attain human-level intelligence
Raymond
Kurzweil is an author, inventor and futurist. The Age of Spiritual
Machines was written in 1999. Kurzweil is known as a technology
prophet. He predicted, in “The Age of Spiritual Machines” that within a
few decades, “computers will attain a level of intelligence and
consciousness both qualitatively and quantitatively beyond human
capabilities.”
He argued “that further evolution of our species will be inextricably bound to our ability to enhance our bodies and minds with integrated computer prosthetics.” The discussion in this article presents a debate that happened around Kurzweil’s ideas. A diverse panel of specialists looked at these defiant ideas.
Multiple questions emerged from the panel, like:
What is a person?
What is a human person?
What is consciousness?
Will a computer of sufficient complexity become conscious?
Are we essentially computers ourselves? etc.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes a subject of relevance. Kurzweil believes in AI and is a strong advocate of it. He believes that with the right combination of multiple aspects, computers will see spirituality as we are now.
In this panel of multiple expertise, debate happened around Kurzweil’s predictions:
- like philosopher John Searle. He says that computers can’t produce consciousness. The brain can.
- zoologist and evolutionary algorithm theorist, Thomas Ray, thinks that computers might evolve it’s own type of intelligence with the right conditions. After all, it happened with us!
- biologist, Michael Denton, speaks of emergence in a different way: he “implies that things evolve according to some sort of intelligent plan or purpose. “
- philosopher and mathematician William Dembski, criticizes Kurzweil for not doing justice to humans intelligence.
Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, had a discussion with Kurzweil on how one can predict that computer power is roughly doubling every 18 months and will not stop. With the recent progress in chip evolution, Moore’s Law should evolve for another 30 years. ”The result would be machines a million times as fast and capacious as today’s personal computers and thereby sufficient to implement the dreams of Kurzweil”. And “once an intelligent robot exists it is only a small step to a robot species—to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself.”
Joy talked about a new thread, that is “self-replication”. With all the advances in technology and science, new germs can self-replicate now. So, eventually, robot species will be able to. That brings some scary thoughts and nightmares, only seen in Hollywood productions up to now. Joy transformed Kurzweil’s “vision of freedom and creativity into a Sci-Fi Doomsday scenario.”
Conflicting Visions of the Future - and Reality
As science doesn’t provide proof of negative, caution is always the best argument. New technologies improve at a phenomenal rhythm. It certainly answers many questions and problems but doesn’t fix everything or bad uses of it. Joy asks the question:” What will happen when our technological achievements give us Promethean powers … when most of those in charge have ceased to believe in anyone or anything like God?”
Science gives the confidence to some that they can do without God. Kurzweil defines evolution as a purpose of life. Joy sees the future as a source of fear and uncertainty. Kurzweil celebrates “human freedom and creativity as sources of wealth and fulfillment”
He argued “that further evolution of our species will be inextricably bound to our ability to enhance our bodies and minds with integrated computer prosthetics.” The discussion in this article presents a debate that happened around Kurzweil’s ideas. A diverse panel of specialists looked at these defiant ideas.
Multiple questions emerged from the panel, like:
What is a person?
What is a human person?
What is consciousness?
Will a computer of sufficient complexity become conscious?
Are we essentially computers ourselves? etc.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes a subject of relevance. Kurzweil believes in AI and is a strong advocate of it. He believes that with the right combination of multiple aspects, computers will see spirituality as we are now.
In this panel of multiple expertise, debate happened around Kurzweil’s predictions:
- like philosopher John Searle. He says that computers can’t produce consciousness. The brain can.
- zoologist and evolutionary algorithm theorist, Thomas Ray, thinks that computers might evolve it’s own type of intelligence with the right conditions. After all, it happened with us!
- biologist, Michael Denton, speaks of emergence in a different way: he “implies that things evolve according to some sort of intelligent plan or purpose. “
- philosopher and mathematician William Dembski, criticizes Kurzweil for not doing justice to humans intelligence.
Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, had a discussion with Kurzweil on how one can predict that computer power is roughly doubling every 18 months and will not stop. With the recent progress in chip evolution, Moore’s Law should evolve for another 30 years. ”The result would be machines a million times as fast and capacious as today’s personal computers and thereby sufficient to implement the dreams of Kurzweil”. And “once an intelligent robot exists it is only a small step to a robot species—to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself.”
Joy talked about a new thread, that is “self-replication”. With all the advances in technology and science, new germs can self-replicate now. So, eventually, robot species will be able to. That brings some scary thoughts and nightmares, only seen in Hollywood productions up to now. Joy transformed Kurzweil’s “vision of freedom and creativity into a Sci-Fi Doomsday scenario.”
Conflicting Visions of the Future - and Reality
As science doesn’t provide proof of negative, caution is always the best argument. New technologies improve at a phenomenal rhythm. It certainly answers many questions and problems but doesn’t fix everything or bad uses of it. Joy asks the question:” What will happen when our technological achievements give us Promethean powers … when most of those in charge have ceased to believe in anyone or anything like God?”
Science gives the confidence to some that they can do without God. Kurzweil defines evolution as a purpose of life. Joy sees the future as a source of fear and uncertainty. Kurzweil celebrates “human freedom and creativity as sources of wealth and fulfillment”