Age of Spiritual Machines essays

Age of Spiritual Machines essays The Age of Spiritual Machines presents a history of computers, looking at how past trends in computing have led to today's personal machines. Author Ray Kurzweil then goes beyond history to look towards the future. Most audiences are familiar with the notion that computers will one day think faster and better than humans. However, Kurzweil goes beyond such familiar ground, making specific predictions regarding how "spiritual machines" will blur the line between thinking humans and technological In the first part of the book, "Probing the Past," Kurweil presents an excellent survey of how computational knowledge evolved throughout history. A gifted technological historian, Kurzweil sets the stage in this chapter by showing how these past developments have both changed the way people live and how this knowledge laid the foundations for his future Towards this, Kurzweil draws heavily from the work of heavyweights in the field such as Carl Sagan, Sherry Turkle, Marvin Minsky, Alan Turing and Eric Drexler. While Kurzweil does not actually present anything new in this part, he presents a good synthesis of the work of these important technological writers and philosophers. In this sense, The Age of Spiritual Machines is already a good read for a person looking for a good introduction into the work of the aforementioned authors. However, Kurzweil then moves on to make predictions of his own, and the fact that Kurzweil is specific with his predictions is one of the strengths of this interesting book. The author writes, for example, that by providing more intense and pleasurable sensations, virtual sex will soon be better than conventional sex. Digital prostitutes will service humans in a virtual environment, eliminating the risk of disease. Humans will soon have the ability to download their brains and minds into robots. This means that humans would be akin ...