Customer Reviews

Are We Spiritual Machines?: Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong A.I.

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The work, inventions, and opinions of Ray Kurzweil in the field of artificial intelligence have captured media attention and the attention of philosophers and researchers in artificial intelligence. But not only is Kurzweil one of the most brilliant and controversial of all the individuals working in artificial intelligence, he is also the most optimistic. This optimism holds not only for the future technology of artificial intelligence, predicted by Kurzweil to give independent thinking machines in the next three decades, but also for its social impact. Kurzweil believes that artificial intelligence will work for the benefit of humankind, but that this benefit will depend to a great degree on his belief that humans will take on technology that will effectively make them cybernetic.

The controversy behind Kurzweil stems from his recent book "The Age of Spirtual Machines", which is a detailed accounting of his predictions and beliefs regarding artificial intelligence. Many individuals objected to his visions and predictions, and he answers a few of them in this book. In particular, he attempts to counter the arguments against him by the philosopher John Searle, the molecular biologist Michael Denton, the philosopher William A. Dembski, and zoologist Thomas Ray. With only a few minor exceptions, Kurzweil is successful in his refutation of their assertions.

But even if Kurzweil completely refutes the arguments of these individuals, and possibly many more against him, the countering of arguments will not by itself solve the problems in artificial intelligence research. The fact remains that much work still needs to be done before we are priveleged to see the rise of intelligent machines. Kurzweil is well-aware of this, for he acknowledges this many times in this book. He points to reverse engineering of the human brain as one of the most promising strategies to bring in the robotic presence. The success or failure of this strategy will take the mind-body problem out of purely academic circles and bring it to the forefront of practical research in artificial intelligence. The 21st century will thus see the rise of the "industrial philosopher", who works in the laboratory beside the programmers, cognitive scientists, robot engineers, and neurologists.

Each reader of this book will of course have their own opinions on Kurzweil's degree of success in countering the arguments of Searle, Denton, Dembski, and Ray. But one thing is very clear: Kurzweil is no arm-chair philosopher engaging in purely academic debates on the mind-body problem. He is right in the thick of the research and development of artificial intelligence, and if the future turns out as he predicts, he will certainly be one of the individuals contributing to it. He and many others currently working in artificial intelligence are responsible for major advances in this field in just the last few years. Their ingenuity and discipline is admirable in a field that has experienced a roller coaster ride of confidence and disappointment in the preceding decades. All of these individuals have proved themselves to be superb thinking machines.

I enjoy reading Kurzweil because he's an adventurous thinker. This book is particularly fun because some other fine minds take him to task. Ray holds up well because he's a reasonable thinker. Although some of his predicitions seem outlandish, they may not be. You can't read this book without engaging in a lot of interesting visualization about the future. Some of it is frightening, but there is hope as well. Will the future runaway on it's own or will we be in charge? I don't know, but I'm sure thinking about it, now.

This is Ray Kurzweil's third book concerning the future of reductionist artificial intelligence design and it's possible effects on us in the decades yet to come. In THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES, Kurzweil's previous book, which I enjoyed also, and this volume, he uses technological trends, including Moore's law and other tools, to show that a desktop computer will have achieved human level computational ability around the year 2020. Also, Kurzweil envisions that we will be able, sometime in the next few decades, to scan human brains and download that 'software' into these advanced computers to give them human level reasoning abilities, with the speed of computer neural nets, leaving humans behind, so to speak. Accordingly, it may also be possible to scan individual brains and load that information into an advanced computer (attached to a body of some kind), giving that person a sort of immortality. This is the gist of Kurzweil's argument, I hope I got it essentially correct.

What Kuzweil means by computers someday becoming 'spiritual' is that they may become conscious, and 'strong A.I.' is the view that "any computational process sufficiently capable of altering or organizing itself can produce consciousness." The first part of this book is an introduction to all of the above views by Kurzweil, followed by criticisms by four authors, followed in turn by Kurzweil as he refutes these criticisms.

Personally, I found most of the views expounded by the critics here to be either non-sensical, or 'beside the point'. One critic says that the life support functions of the brain cannot be separated from it's information processing function. Of course it can be, even the effects of hormones can be programmed into a downloaded brain, as well as other chemicals used by brains. Another critic states that possibly evolution is in error, and yet another criticism is that our machines will not be able to contact a divine entity and would thus be inferior.... give me a break, well...perhaps this is all true and maybe pigs will one day fly over the moon unassisted. I could go on and on, but this is the job of Ray Kurzweil and he defends himself admirably in the final chapters of this volume. Kurzweil does mention in this book that brain scanning machines are improving their resolution with each new generation, and eventually will reach a point where they should be able to image individual neurons and synapses in large areas, and allow the brain 'software' to be transferred to a suitable non-biological computing medium, my only criticism of Kurzweil here is that I think he should discuss this technology more, and where it is headed, his next book would be a great place for this.

One final point, it seems to me that when a new idea appears to be difficult and complicated to achieve, the pessimist says: "This is difficult and complicated, and may not work", whereas the optimist says: "This is difficult and complicated, but may work". Only time will tell for sure.

In the closing session of the 1998 Telecosm conference, hosted by Gilder Publishing and Forbes at Lake Tahoe, inventor and author Ray Kurzweil engaged a number of critics. He advocated "Strong Artificial Intelligence" (AI), the claim that a computational process sufficiently capable of altering or organizing itself can produce "consciousness." The session had an unexpectedly profound impact, not least because a number of important issues from technology to philosophy converge on this one issue. This volume reproduces and expands upon that initial discussion.

Esteemed AI advocate Ray Kurzweil opens the volume arguing that by 2019, a personal computer will rival the processing power of the human brain. He is convinced that artificial intelligence--with the capability to "feel" and think like a human--will necessarily emerge. The twenty-first century will see a blurring of the line between human and machine as neural implants become more prevalent. Eventually, machines will become "spiritual"--or as Kurzweil means it, "conscious."

Kurzweil also sees an analogy between technological evolution and traditional accounts of Darwinian evolution. Under Darwinism, life-forms took billions of years to develop but then exploded in short burst of diversification. Kurzweil calls this the "law of accelerating returns" where technological innovation in the 20th century surpassed all previous centuries combined. At this rate, computation power currently doubles every year. By 2050, a personal computer will have the computing power of all the human brains on earth. Kurzweil believes that simply by reverse-engineering the human mind it can be reproduced. Eventually, human minds will be downloaded and "cloned." He then envisions software-based "humans" which can effectively live forever, or at least as long as their hardware lasts. Humans can become like God.

Skeptics of Kurzweil then have their chance to respond. John Searle explains that when Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov, that Deep Blue wasn't really "thinking" about chess while Kasparov fully understood the game he was playing. Deep Blue could duplicate the playing of chess, but wasn't really "playing chess." In short, Kurzweil would say "if it looks the same and feels the same, then it really is the same." Searle pushes us to ask deeper questions: "Is it really the same?"

Michael Denton makes a similar argument: he concedes that if living organisms really are in all respects analogous to inorganic machines, then Kurzweil may very well be right. But Denton has doubts. Living organisms undergo complete reproduction of both "hardware" and "software"--something that no machine can do. Moreover, living organisms cannot be reduced to genes--meaning that something more than "software" is necessary for life.

Discovery Institute Fellow William Dembski takes aim at Kurzweil's arguments about "impoverished spirituality." Materialism predicts that mind is reducible to matter. Dembski writes that "[m]achine spirituality neglects much that has traditionally been classified under spirituality" for "[t]he spiritual experience of a machine is necessarily poorer than the spiritual experience of a being that communes with God." "How," Dembski asks, "can a machine be aware of God's presence?" There is something vastly deficient about Kurzweil's conceptions of spirituality.

This debate will likely not end any time soon but may be concluded based upon how technology advances in this century. For a preview of debates to come, the prophecies of Kurzweil--and the responses from critics--are well worth reading. Fifty years from now, one side will be able to say "We were right."

After reading Kurzweil's books "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and part of "The Singularity is Near" I wanted to hear some critics about his theories, beacuse one side of the discussion often blurs your view of the overall issue. This book provides a good discussion of both sides about Strong AI. I still agree with Kurzweil's view, but I really liked reading how others think about it. Read this book if you've read some of Kurzweil's work before and like to hear another perspective. The book can also be used as an introduction to the field, because the first chapter is a summery of Kurzweil's theories, which he describes at full length in his books. The only downside to this book is the repetitive character of the arguments that sometimes get tiring to read.

In this book, the pessimists bring to light some huge mountains that will have to be crossed before AI ever becomes a reality. The same ideas are repeated over and over and over again. A lack of having a steady stream of new information soon becomes tedious to get through. Nevertheless, new information does keep pouring in, albeit at a slow place, and makes reading the entire book worthwhile for any AI enthusiast.

Critics of Kurzweil's "vision" of the future have several objections: (1) Machines will never be conscious (variety of reasons) (2) We should return to a simpler life with sickness and death as part of our humanity, (3) the data has been misinterpreted/trends can't be extrapolated and (4) previous AI claims failed OR our current technology can't perform the job therefore it can't be done. Oddly, the last is quite popular despite it's being the one most easily refutable. In 1930 we could not build a nuclear device therefore why try? In 1960 we could not "fly to the moon" therefore we never would. In 1990 we could not catalogue the human genome therefore we would forever wonder.

Our relentless drive to the unknown future is like Einstein's thought problem of riding a light beam - things appear normal to the observer. We are used to the increasing pace of technological change and can only catch limited glimpses of that future as it grows steadily nearer. We are all familiar with the rosy future of Ray vs the often gloomy and pessimistic vision of many of his detractors. Is the middle ground the answer?

Kurzweil answers his critics directly. They challenge not only his idea of a spiritual machine but also his methodology, research, interpretations and conclusions. Is a rate of change linear because exponential change is the norm? Can past predictions (failed or achieved) be a harbinger of future predictions? What does it mean to be human when one is not 100% flesh and blood? Penrose contends that the structure of the brain is the key to consciousness yet our minds emerge from matter with electronic circuits - no mystical outside force or higher power is required.

An old movie had the line that when you can't tell the difference between a machine and a human, the machine is effectively human. Does it matter if Big Blue is not "thinking" about chess yet performs so admirably? Who cares if machines turn Japanese into English without "concentrating" on it? Yet Kurzweil insists that downloading and uploading the structure of the human brain will eventually bring forth a spirit that like out own, that is a product of its material base but also separate from it.

I got this for my friend who is an Engineer. It has really made him begin to think about these dilemmas.

If I had realized this was published by the creationist Discovery Institute, I would have saved my money. Not as bad as I feared when I noticed that. Most of the arguments and claims on both sides are repetitive. Except for a few mistakes, Kurzweil's arguments much better than the "Critics" arguments. The most glaring mistake, pointed out by Searle, was his mistating/misunderstanding of the Church-Turing Thesis; it took me two minutes with my encyclopedia of mathematics to check out, but Kurzweil just repeated his mistaken claim in his rebuttal. Most of Searle's argument was pretty silly, so maybe Kurzweil never considered part of it might be right.

If you have read Age of Spiritual Machines, this is a waste of time.
If you haven't read it, it is a better source than this book. The better arguments of the critics were mostly already covered in that book. Kurzweil's initial statement in chapter 1 of this book is a much condensed version of Age of Spiritual Machines.

Basically you can buy and read this book or buy the new 2000's version/remake of Battlestar Galactica and the show Caprica and watch them and see a visual interpretation of this authors theories. I like the t.v. show myself. The book is great. Buy it. But Battlestar is even better. That's it. John