From: Stardrive9@aol.com
Date: Tue Dec 29 1998 - 16:53:30 MST
I'm passing on this recent post on the Skeptic mailing list for your interest.
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SPIRITUAL COMPUTERS
The Boston Globe ran an interesting review on 12/27/98, page L01, entitled:
"Can 'intelligent' machines ever be spiritual beings? High-tech prognosticator
Ray Kurzweil thinks so," by Chet Raymo. I don't want to download the entire
review (even though someone sent it to me in a bulk e-mailing) as I've been
called on the carpet recently for possible copyright violations, such as for
passing along the Stephen Wright jokes (some of which were apparently by other
comedians such as Gallagher and Carlin). (What is the law/ethics of this on
the internet? anyone know?). You can track down the review at
www.bostonglobe.com but here is a short summary.
Kurzweil, who apparently has an impressive track record for predicting
computer breakthroughs, in his new book ''The Age of Spiritual Machines'' (he
is also the author of ''The Age of Intelligent Machines," 1990) predicts that
a computer will pass the "Turing Test" (where you could have a dialogue with a
computer about deep and meaningful subjects and not be able to tell if it is a
person or a computer) within 20 years, and exceed the computing power of all
humans on earth by 2060. By 2100, he says, computers will be fully conscious,
self-aware, and "spiritual" (whatever that means), etc. Check it out. Here is
Raymo's description of Kurzweil:
"Kurzweil's credentials as computer guru are impeccable. He is inventor of the
first commercially marketed speech-recognition system, the first computer
music keyboard capable of accurately reproducing the sounds of real orchestra
instruments, the first system that can recognize all forms of alphabetic
characters, the first system for text-to-synthesized-speech, and other key
developments in making machines behave more like us."
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