since i'm "digested" i don't know if this was mentioned, but "the age of
spiritual machines" is now available in paperback... i'd say that while it
certainly is an interesting book, it has two major flaws.
1. mr kurzweil does more than just "toot his own horn a bit". could he please
stop mentioning how he's writing this book using a dictation system from a
company he founded? :)
2. he takes a lot of leaps of faith - while it's pretty easy to believe that
hardware will follow moore's law for the immediate future, there's little
evidence that software will be capable of utilizing this power in ways that
equate to intelligence. you can have as fast of a machine as you like, but
until we come up with a good way of programming context-sensitivity, we're still
just going to have really fast yet dumb machines. there's a serious lack of
depth on a lot of subjects & it's frustrating.
despite this, it's still worth reading just to see one vision of what the future
holds. but in the end it felt more like scientifically-based science fiction
than anything else...
obIDM: mouse on mars put on one of the few live shows that i didn't get bored
with in a long time. much more entertaining than knob twiddling, even if i did
feel like they were hamming it up a bit. :) definately check them out when
they stop by your neightborhood.
ethan
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 19:32:46 EDT
To: idm@hyperreal.org
From: matthew d salcido <mattsalcido@juno.com>
Subject: Re: kurzweil
Message-ID: <19990505.151720.7927.0.mattsalcido@juno.com>
ive read this book. its a very interesting read. its called "the age of
spiritual machines" and it was published by viking press. one of the
things i really liked was that the book wasnt written in a linear
chapter
to chapter format so you can skip around reading the chapters that
capture your interest first. as far as i know its only available in
hard
cover but its worth your while to check it out even if he does tend to
toot his own horn a bit.
matt
--------
www.spaceistheplace.org/ambientmafia
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