CONNECTICUT LIBRARIES
October 1999
Using one hand, actor Robert Culp pushed back the prosthetic fingers of his other hand. Culp's character had relentlessly tracked down those artificial fingers, fought off aliens from the future, and rescued a young woman, apparently the only other human left on earth. As Culp's glassy fingers reached an unnatural backward angle, several tapes emerged from his palm. To save itself from the aliens, he learned, humanity had transferred to tape the knowledge and memories of earth's several billion individuals. He had been unknowingly entrusted with the tapes. Now, it was revealed that he was not a man, but an artificial human! As the show closed, the rescued young woman nervously drew away from the handsome machine, and the bewildered machine pondered his new, non-human identity. Information technology would repopulate the Earth, not Adam and Eve.This episode of the 1960's Outer Limits touched on many science fiction themes. Can we create an intelligence equal to or superior to our own? Can we download our memories and knowledge to a computer? If so, will the computer be the same person as the individual with whom it shares its "database?" Will a thinking machine develop feelings and reflect on its existence? Can a human love a machine? What will humans do while machines perform civilization's functions?
Ray Kurzweil transfers these themes from the fantasy worlds of sci-fi to the realm of scientific discussion. He theorizes that technological development is the latest phase of evolution. Evolution began, not with the appearance of life on earth, but rather with the very inception of the universe. Nor has evolution ceased with the emergence of Homo sapiens. Technology picks up where natural selection leaves off (p.14-15). Technology is more than humankind's ability to provide itself with tools for shaping its environment. Technology is an inevitable stage in the evolution of intelligence in the universe.
Kurzweil recognizes in the ever-increasing pace of technological change, the same acceleration that has characterized evolution since the "big bang." It took many billions of years for the earth to form, but only another two billion before life appeared. Time intervals between the emergence of more and more advanced forms of life are measured in millions of years rather than billions. When humans introduced technology, the pace again accelerated.
Modern technology has meant exponential evolution. Many of us would cite "Moore's Law" as the cause of exponential technological change, i.e., the processing power of chips doubles every 24 months. This view is too narrow for Kurzweil. He reminds us that before integrated circuits existed, we built mechanical computers, then computers based on electrical relays, vacuum tubes, and transistors, respectively. When the full history of computers is considered, the speed and density of computation is doubling annually, making today's machines 100 million times more powerful than those of 50 years ago (p. 25). The pace will accelerate next century.
Kurzweil asserts that we will create computers that equal, and then exceed, human intelligence. By 2019 AD, a machine roughly equivalent to the power of the human brain will cost $4,000 (p. 203). One-thousand dollars in the year 2029 will buy a computer with the capacity of 1,000 human brains (p. 220). By then, the distinctions between human and machine intelligence will blur. Machine intelligence will have been derived from its human counterpart. It will be common for machines to have personalities, to work as artists, and to experience emotions. Conversely, humans will be equipped with implants for high-resolution display, cochlear implants for auditory communication with networks, and neural implants to enhance our memories and perceptions, and to boost our learning abilities. Information will be ported from human to machine, and vice-versa. Many of our experiences, including sexual encounters, will occur using virtual bodies. Machines, too, will have virtual bodies.
In addition to startling theories, Kurzweil explains the concepts behind the phenomenal developments of the near future: neural nets, nanobots, nanotubes, self-organizing systems, fog swarms, and more. He does not ignore the possibility of human backlash. He provides a surprisingly lucid quote from neo-Luddite "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski. He validates some of Kaczynski's concerns, though not the terrorist's remedies. For Kurzweil, resistance is futile. The supplanting of human intelligence with machine intelligence is inevitable. Humans will accept it in small steps as computers improve the quality of our lives.
Kurzweil uses that troubling word "spiritual" in his title, yet his scenario for 2099 AD is more temporal than supernatural. Finally, in his epilogue, right before 126 pages of time line, footnotes, glossary, and appendices, he returns to the cosmology of Chapter 1. We may not have been present at the creation, but Kurzweil believes that our evolved intelligence, distributed throughout the cosmos, may postpone forever the fiery or icy ends of the universe predicted by our physicists. Now that sounds spiritual!
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