Product Description Will the Geeks inherit the earth?
If computers become twice as fast and twice as capable every two years, how long is it before they’re as intelligent as humans? More intelligent? And then in two more years, twice as intelligent? How long before you won’t be able to tell if you are texting a person or an especially ingenious chatterbot program designed to simulate intelligent human conversation?
According to Richard Dooling in Rapture for the Geeks—maybe not that long. It took humans millions of years to develop opposable thumbs (which we now use to build computers), but computers go from megabytes to gigabytes in five years; from the invention of the PC to the Internet in less than fifteen. At the accelerating rate of technological development, AI should surpass IQ in the next seven to thirty-seven years (depending on who you ask). We are sluggish biological sorcerers, but we’ve managed to create whiz-bang machines that are evolving much faster than we are.
In this fascinating, entertaining, and illuminating book, Dooling looks at what some of the greatest minds have to say about our role in a future in which technology rapidly leaves us in the dust. As Dooling writes, comparing human evolution to technological evolution is “worse than apples and oranges: It’s appliances versus orangutans.” Is the era of Singularity, when machines outthink humans, almost upon us? Will we be enslaved by our supercomputer overlords, as many a sci-fi writer has wondered? Or will humans live lives of leisure with computers doing all the heavy lifting?
With antic wit, fearless prescience, and common sense, Dooling provocatively examines nothing less than what it means to be human in what he playfully calls the age of b.s. (before Singularity)—and what life will be like when we are no longer alone with Mother Nature at Darwin’s card table. Are computers thinking and feeling if they can mimic human speech and emotions? Does processing capability equal consciousness? What happens to our quaint beliefs about God when we’re all worshipping technology? What if the human compulsion to create ever more capable machines ultimately leads to our own extinction? Will human ingenuity and faith ultimately prevail over our technological obsessions? Dooling hopes so, and his cautionary glimpses into the future are the best medicine to restore our humanity.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Ecletic and wandering but interestingNovember 14, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The author provides a balanced view of the "singularity" and gives Ray Kurzweil his due. The suggestion that humans learn programming languages to make us somewhat more acceptable to our AI successors is a bit of a stretch, as if we were dogs learning tricks to keep our owners feeding us. Of course, learning programming is a good idea but for pete's sake -- if computers are a threat, don't we need to put in safeguards? But I'm not trashing the book; it is a fun read and the author is obviously well educated in both the classics and in current scifi literature. He suggests that religion, in one form or another, will be with us always. I read it on the Kindle and took a few notes along the way. Good read. Bill Yarberry, Houston, Texas
Good Start, Poor FinishNovember 14, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
But how do you know when machine IQ > human IQ?October 18, 2008 5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Intelligent machines are a reality to some, a curiosity to others, and a source of intense debate to the majority of philosophers, cognitive scientists, and computer engineers. When studying the history of artificial intelligence one finds a roller coaster ride of confidence and self-doubt, with one discovery after another eventually trivialized to a degree that one wonders what the hype was about in the first place. But in this regard it is amazing to find that in this same history one rarely comes across serious proposals for measuring the intelligence of a machine. This omission makes it hard to judge progress in the field, and no doubt is the source of the above-mentioned trivializations that encourage the belief that AI is a fantasy world populated by computer geeks and science-fiction writers.
This book, written for the ill-defined "popular audience", follows the same trend that most books of its kind do, and aggravates the phenomenon mentioned in the last paragraph. No proposals are made for assessing the degree to which a machine is intelligence, in spite of its title. Can one in fact speak of the "IQ" of a machine, and if so how does one calculate or estimate it? The author does not give any advice in this regard, which is surprising indeed since a lot of space in the book is devoted to the articulation of what some have called a "technological singularity." This is a point or interval of time in the future where the rate of technological progress is essentially infinite, and has been predicted by some to happen sometime in the next few decades. There has been some good empirical evidence given that supports the notion of a technological singularity, but in recent years it seems that the search for more evidence has been replaced by marketing hype.
In spite of these omissions, the book should be of interest to those who want a more light-hearted introduction to artificial intelligence and its place in the modern world. The author displays a good sense of humor, but his anxieties about modern technology are readily apparent, with a fair portion of the book devoted to airing the views of noted technoreactionists. Interesting though is his defense of some technology-induced pastimes such as gaming, with its heavy reliance on the mental activities of "telescoping" and "probing."
In general the book is optimistic, with this optimism almost cloaked in an "inevitability" theme for the ongoing technological growth. The author is right when he states that humans crave novelty and are a restless and creative species. These attitudes instigated technological innovation and are now in symbiosis with it. Whether this relationship will evolve into dependence is an open question, but the trend seems to be that machines will play a role that is both dominant and subservient. Intelligent machines have and will continue to have dominance in areas such as financial engineering, medical diagnostics and prognostics, and network management. But to this date no machine has exhibited curiosity or expertise in many different domains. Humans still hold the edge here, today at least, but probably not tomorrow. One thing is certain though, and that is that our adventure with the machines is just beginning.
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