The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence

by Ray Kurzweil (Author)

216 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0670882175

ISBN-10: 0670882178

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The creator of the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the Kurzweil synthesizer, and the Windows 95 voice-recognition program offers logical and readable forecasts about twenty-first century technology. 65,000 first printing. Tour.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

According to the law of accelerating returns, explains futurist Kurzweil (The Age of Intelligent Machines), technological gains are made at an exponential rate. In his utopian vision of the 21st century, our lives will change not merely incrementally but fundamentally. The author is the inventor of reading and speech-recognition machines, among other technologies, but he isn't much of a writer. Using clunky prose and an awkward dialogue with a woman from the future, he sets up the history of evolution and technology and then offers a whirlwind tour through the next 100 years. Along the way, he makes some bizarre predictions. If Kurzweil has it right, in the next few decades humans will download books directly into their brains, run off with virtual secretaries and exist "as software," as we become more like computers and computers become more like us. Other projections?e.g., that most diseases will be reversible or preventable?are less strange but seem similarly Panglossian. Still others are more realizable: human-embedded computers will track the location of practically anyone, at any time. More problematic is Kurzweil's self-congratulatory tone. Still, by addressing (if not quite satisfactorily) the overpowering distinction between intelligence and consciousness, and by addressing the difference between a giant database and an intuitive machine, this book serves as a very provocative, if not very persuasive, view of the future from a man who has studied and shaped it. B&w illustrations. Agent, Loretta Barrett; foreign rights sold in the U.K., Germany, Italy and Spain; simultaneous Penguin audio; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

With the coming of the millennium, there is no shortage of predictions about what the next century will hold. Inventor, computer scientist, and futurist Kurzweil (The Age of Intelligent Machines, LJ 6/1/91) has produced a vision of the 21st century in which he predicts that a $1000 personal computer will match the computing speed and capacity of the human brain by around the year 2020. But Kurzweil does more than simply prognosticate about the future?he provides a blueprint for the next stage of human evolution, in which we will begin to develop computers more intelligent than ourselves. Then we must ask ourselves whether these new thinking machines are indeed conscious entities. This superb work is a thoughtful melding of technology, philosophy, ethics, and humanism. Highly recommended.
-?Joe J. Accardi, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product details

Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Viking Adult (January 1, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0670882178
ISBN-13: 978-0670882175
Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.4 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
Average Customer Review: 216 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #234,927 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #77 in Books > Textbooks > Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence
- #116 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Human-Computer Interaction
- #260 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > AI & Machine Learning > Intelligence & Semantics

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Modern FossilTop Contributor: Guitars

A must read.

April 25, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I read this like seven or eight years ago and go back once a year to see how Kurzweil did on his predictions for the future with his historical timeline of technology. And folks, he's been spot on. And when you look at his predictions for the twenty years or so since he wrote this book, he's been spot on. And then when you consider the things he's predicted for the end of the century, it's absolutely mind-blowing. I mean this guy said twenty some years ago in writing that a super computer the size of a credit card, likely a telephone, would be affordable and in everybody's hands. You will want to know what he's predicted for the next twenty years I think. And under the heading of a cause and effect loop, some financial investors have payed close attention to Kurzweil's time line too.

Now I'm not an engineer or much of a math guy and there's a lot of that stuff in this book, but Kurzweil is also a readable and prolific philosopher, and whether you agree with his philosophy or not, did I mention the guy hasn't been wrong in his predictions yet, you will take pause to rethink your point of view for better or worse. What else could you want in a book?

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Arthur Sellers

Careful, it contains the future of human evolution.

January 22, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Kurzweil is a tech savant, respected at the highest institutions. It helps to know a little physics, but his prose is clear and easy to understand. Suggest you familiarize yourself with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, IE, at the quantum level, matter only comes into being when something Conscious looks at it, collapsing from a wave function into particles. It means that consciousness is Non-local, it exists apart from the physical universe, and affects the matter it observes. Bottom line, we humans are consciously inventing the next step in our evolution. The exponential rate of computing power indicates we will achieve Artificial Intelligence soon; Self-aware, conscious computers, operating at light speed (as opposed to slow, neuron-based organic brains). Being conscious entities, they will inherit curiosity and creation. They will have identity and existential/spiritual questions, and will likely go looking for themselves. We humans are already implanting artificial joints, pumps, microchips and medical devices in our bodies; expect brain implants tomorrow. Over time, and to stay relevant, humanity will inevitably need to abandon the ages-long pace of natural evolution and "move into" our technology. The switch from limited neuron-based thinking to photon-speed intelligence is a paradigm shift for our species--bringing exponential advancement. Thus, the coming spiritual machines will be our self-evolved selves.

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David S. Wellhauser

Still a Brilliant Read

October 26, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The Age of Spiritual Machines, first published in 1999, remains a robust projection into the future of this century. Many of the predictions made by Ray Kurzweil have already occured while others have yet to manifest...if they ever do.

That said, Mr. Kurzweil book is highly recommended for those exhausted by the apocalypic readings of the emerging century, not for its unruly optimism but because it charts the coming century in a manner that seems almost plausible.

Recommended for those interested in the fate of both humans and the planet over the next almost 100 years.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

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SPOT-ON ... BUT NOT FOR ALL READERS

October 9, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I have long recognized the author as one of the world's leading scientist, a "futurist's icon" and agree with most of the other many accolades frequently accorded to him. I read his book "The Singularity is Near" a few years back and found it to be both visionary and compelling. Whether you choose to accept the validity of Kurzweil's vision for humanity's near-term future or not, it is my personal view that his thinking will likely end up being 90% plus accurate. It is simply a matter of time before we get there. I am not necessarily attempting to pose any judgement on the moral implications of Kurtzweil's future, that is up to each person to decide for them self as we get closer to its fulfillment. One important perspective on this book ... while the material in it is cutting-edge and needs to be understood by a larger degree of humanity, I'm not sure the average reader will be able to grasp many portions in it because of Kurzweil's advanced writing/thinking style. Large sections of the book are technical and above the average comprehensive ability without advanced formal education, experience or some degree of familiarity with the subject matter. As an example, I recently read "Radical Evolution" by Joel Garreau - almost precisely the same subject matter as this book, but much easier to follow and absorb because of the relaxed writing style. Garreau's book is not necessarily "dumbed-down" it is just an easier and more fun style to read for the average person.
Intelligent Intervention

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Steven E. Williams

Interesting....some outdated material.

September 12, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Kurzweil is an interesting writer, he has some fascinating ideas. Downside with this book is that about the final 3rd is his predictions for the future (basically the NOW since the book was written almost 20 years ago). He was way off about a lot of things, so at that point it becomes less interesting (like when you see we are still using mice and keyboards and aren't really using voice to text on computers).

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