The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil
Posted on May 9th, 2005
Here's a book that's now 6 years old making predictions about the distant future. But these predictions are backed by something called the Law of Accelerating Returns, which can be summarized naively by saying: things have been going faster and faster for a long time, and odds are it's going to stay that way.
Among other things, the future involves machines that can out-think the average human brain, and not just in the terms of aggregate calculation speed. It involves redrawing the line and the link between human and machine in ways that seem impossible through today's eyes, but coupled with Kurzweil's ability to trace things back to the here and how they seem much more inevitable. Will my computer one day be as intelligent as I think it should be? Why wouldn't it-- it's not as if we're likely to just give up, throw in the towel and satisfice with what we've already got. We're all about the more more more.
I like the way Kurzweil takes you back to the beginning with this book, cosmically speaking. He's got a timeline at the back of the book that shows the Law of Accelerating Returns in action, starting with the birth of the Universe, followed by ever-shortening intervals of time through the present day: galaxies form; planets form; multicellular organisms; Homo sapiens; on and on. By the time you get to the 20th century, there are a lot more events that qualify as progress per unit of time.
The predictions for 2009 are still a ways out, but they're in the right ballpark. Those for 2019 and 2029 seem as distant as the ones for 2099, but it's not so much whether they're right or wrong as whether they could ever happen in the first place. Nano-produced food? A majority of human communication happening between human and machine? Neural implants for the brain, even?
It's easy enough to read this book and then shrug it off, seeing as how the future hasn't happened yet and all. But when you reach for any of the modern-day technology that drives your life, it's hard not to notice the limitations. My computer screen is only two dimensional? And it doesn't really know anything about me in spite of all the hours I sit in front of it? What a gyp. That's where ideas start to pop up though. You may not be able to launch yourself all the way to 2099 before its time has come, but there are probably a few baby steps to be taken today. And then a few more tomorrow.
The Age of Spiritual Machines helps you redefine your expectations of what technology should be able to do now by comparing it to what it will do later. Personally, it made me want to take another look at speech recognition-- it can't be any worse than it used to be.