Ray Kurzweil is one of the most vocal proponents of the acendency of thinking machines. His The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, written in 1999 is dated, but that is a good thing for a book predicting the future! You can see how many predictions have come true. Much of what he predicted for 2009 is on the money. The interesting thing is that these predictions, which must have seemed wild in the last century, are just part of our everyday life!
The picture of the future he paints is one where machines and humans join to form a new intelligent species. His positive view of this brave new world is infectuous, but he is careful to evaluate the position of the naysayers, and respond. (more…)

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