Rapture for the Geeks: When AI Outsmarts IQ (Kindle Edition)

by Richard Dooling (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Novelist and screenwriter Dooling (White Man's Grave) contemplates the Era of Singularity, the coming day when computers will be able to outthink humans, in this uneven take on the future of machine intelligence. Dooling is at his best when he profiles technology's most captivating futurists: Ray Kurzweil, inventor of scanning and text-to-speech technologies, beguiles with his vision of human minds embedded in silicon chips; physicist and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge portrays a bleaker future where humanity serves its hyperintelligent computer overlords. Dooling veers back and forth between celebrating the speed with which technology is evolving and ruing its hidden perils (our fatal flaw... is Promethean fire-stealing, the instinct to always and everywhere overreach), along the way touching upon the computer research, various philosophies of mind and intelligence, and the historical tensions between man and machine. While an engaging writer, Dooling tends to indulge in sarcasm and snarky humor, which trivializes the deeper import of his message: that whether machines ever become self-aware, living minds, we are losing something of what makes us human when we lose control of our own creations and their meaning. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
Praise for Richard Dooling:
Rapture for the Geeks
“Surprisingly engrossing, quick-witted.”
—New York Observer

“One doesn’t expect a nonfiction book to be fascinating, chilling, thoughtful, and funny in equal measure. This one is. My question: When computers become smarter than humans, and especially if they take over, will they regard Rick Dooling as dangerous, prescient, sympathetic . . . or irrelevant?”
—Kurt Andersen

Bet Your Life
“Manages to invoke Double Indemnity, the Old Testament, and Fountains of Wayne with equal vehemence and thriller wit. . . . If you’re not hooked, you’re one dead mackerel.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“Fascinating . . . A socially relevant satire [that’s] midway between John Grisham and Carl Hiaasen.”
—The New Yorker

Brainstorm
“Brainstorm is simply brilliant—hilarious, thought-provoking, and masterfully crafted. The characters are fantastic and irresistible but completely believable, and their banter is so witty and natural that a reader can forget they are debating ideas at the cutting edge of brain science and philosophy.”
—Steven Pinker, author of How the Mind Works

“Exuberant . . . deeply pleasurable . . . Here is a whodunit that achieves a comic fugue-state mastery of the language of our sexually charged, violent, technocratic society.”
—Colin Harrison, New York Times Book Review

Blue Streak: Swearing, Free Speech and Sexual Harassment
“A charmingly impudent essay on language and sexual politics . . . an extremely clever and creative sort of literary acting out.”
—Richard Bernstein, New York Times

White Man’s Grave
“A bravura display of satire . . . Dooling ...

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 283 KB
• Print Length: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harmony (October 7, 2008)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001HL9C78
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #72,712 in Kindle Store (See Bestsellers in Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Start, Poor Finish, November 14, 2008

By	James B "James B" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rapture for the Geeks: When AI Outsmarts IQ (Hardcover)

While this book started out well, it dropped off quickly from there. Very readable, fairly humorous, but not very techinical it began with a good introduction to the future of technology and AI, but devolved from there into a series of largely irrelevant essays on computer programming. The author, a lawyer, not an engineer, becomes overly fascinated with his own knowledge and repeatedly just threw in snippets of code or tech jargon, apparently for no other purpose than to impress us with his knowledge. Also most annoying were his completely pointless rants about Microsoft. Now I have nothing particular against Microsoft bashing, but it didn't have anything to do with the subject of the book. I can get that for free on the Internet on any Linux forum out there, so why should I have to pay $15 for the honor?

In all a decent intro to the subject though, at least I know what books I want to read now.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wild blend of humor and non-facts, February 22, 2009

By	Charles A. Schuler (Naples, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rapture for the Geeks: When AI Outsmarts IQ (Hardcover)

Richard Dooling admits to drinking whiskey, at the end of this book, and whiskey was perhaps the co-author. This book is a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor, with a few wild (scary, yet entertaining) conjectures, but it often misquotes and misrepresents science and engineering. God, but he loves Unix! God, but he loves code boxes (where was the editor for this book?)

Read it. It is about things that we (or more likely our progeny) will eventually have to face. However, the author clearly misunderstands Moore's Law and other critically important scientific and engineering details. He has no idea what the word "singularity" really means in hard science. He has but a feeble grasp on science and engineering, but that did not stop him from making extreme extrapolations.

If you really care about God and His/Her supposed antithesis (Science), don't read this book as it will either annoy you or confuse you. It will not enlighten you. Dooling has no idea about Einstein's religious beliefs, but has cherry-picked a few popular anecdotes. Here is a counter anecdotal quote "cherry" from the top of the tree: Albert Einstein wrote: "From a Jesuit Viewpoint, I am an Atheist. I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist." - Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr, July 2, 1945, responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism; quoted by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic, Vol. 5, No. 2.

Invoking/speculating about what Albert Einstein really believed about God is not a trivial pursuit, as he was one of the most complex human beings to have ever graced our presence. Mr. Dooling is not qualified to go there.

Mr. Dooling has produced a work of pure fiction with some Dave Barry style humor and some fractured references to the realities of science and engineering. Read it as such.

Or, read the Idiot's guide to Unix.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Rupture of the Geek, February 5, 2009

By	W. Richman "consumer culture dropout" (on the couch, covered with cats, reading a book) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rapture for the Geeks: When AI Outsmarts IQ (Hardcover)

There are some interesting/funny bits in the book, but as another reviewer pointed out, Dooling seems to become so enamored with his own breadth of knowledge that he just _has_ to share it with you. All of it. After running it through a blender. The most interesting parts are the quotes he uses from knowledgeable people in the various fields, but his attempts to interpret what he thinks they're trying to say don't often make a lot of sense. I appreciate his position on the "open source software" movement, and I share his loathing for all things Microsoft, but I'm not sure what either of these things has to do with artificial intelligence. Then, in chapter "12.5" he goes off on a rambling rant concerning why Richard Dawkins isn't in a position to say that "god" doesn't exist. He apparently has some kind of ax to grind on the subject, because he pretty well beats it to death. I'm not sure I'm even going to finish reading the book at this point. Overall, it's neither particularly funny nor particularly insightful. It's as though he wrote the whole thing while admiring himself in the mirror. Not pretty.