Soul of a New Machine
February 21, 2001 by James Daly
Business 2.0 editor James Daly interviews Raymond Kurzweil on what happens when machines become conscious.… read more
essays collection By Author | A-Z
The Singularity Is Near – Ray Kurzweil at Extro5 (Video)
July 30, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil presents his law of accelerating returns at EXTRO-5.… read more
Ray Kurzweil Q&A with Darwin Magazine
December 3, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
Machine consciousness is the subject of this dialog with Darwin Magazine.… read more
Interview: Robert Moog
January 29, 2002 by Billy Bob Hargus
Robert Moog, inventor and electronic music pioneer, introduced the synthesizer to the world in the 1960s, as well as a spooky sounding device called the theremin. Here he discusses what led to these innovations in sound.… read more
Don’t let Crichton’s Prey scare you–the science isn’t real
January 26, 2003 by Chris Phoenix
A review of Michael Crichton’s Prey, a novel featuring out-of-control, self-replicating nanotechnology.… read more
The technology of universal intelligence
October 16, 2003 by Ray Kurzweil
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Levels of intelligence far greater than our own are going to evolve within this century. We will ultimately saturate all of the matter and energy in our area of the universe with our intelligence.… read more
Ray Kurzweil Responds to Richard Eckersley
February 3, 2006 by Ray Kurzweil
“Eckersley bases his romanticized idea of ancient life on communication and the relationships fostered by communication. But much of modern technology is directed at just this basic human need.”… read more
The Third-Generation Web is Coming
December 18, 2006 by Nova Spivack
Web 3.0, expected to debut in 2007, will be more connected, open, and intelligent, with semantic Web technologies, distributed databases, natural language processing, machine learning, machine reasoning, and autonomous agents.… read more
Essay collection | The Ray Kurzweil Reader
July 10, 2003
The Ray Kurzweil Reader is a collection of essays by Ray Kurzweil on virtual reality, artificial intelligence, radical life extension, conscious machines, the promise and peril of technology, and other aspects of our future world. These essays, published from 2001 to 2003, are now available as a PDF document for convenient downloading and offline reading. The 30 essays, organized in seven topic areas (such as “How to Build a Brain”), cover subjects… read more
Robots, Re-Evolving Mind
March 27, 2001 by Hans Moravec
We are re-evolving artificial minds at ten million times the original speed of human evolution, exponentially growing robot complexity. Currently, a guppylike thousand MIPS and hundreds of megabytes of memory enable our robots to build dense, almost photorealistic 3D maps of their surroundings and navigate intelligently. Within three decades, fourth-generation universal robots with a humanlike 100 million MIPS will be able to abstract and generalize–perhaps replace us.… read more
Immortality
April 26, 2001
Vivekananda attempts to answer the question: are we mortal or immortal? If we are mortal, no further questions need be asked. But if we are immortal, what are the logical arguments that support this idea and what is it that endures after death? From his talk delivered over one hundred years ago.
What question has been asked a greater number of times, what idea has led men more to search the universe for an answer, what question is nearer and dearer to the human heart, what question is more inseparably connected with our existence, than this one, the immortality of the human soul? It has been the theme of poets and sages, of priests and prophets; kings on the throne have discussed it, beggars in the street have dreamt of it. The best of humanity have approached it, and the worst of men have hoped for it. The interest in the theme has not died yet, nor will it die so long a human nature exists. Various answers have been presented to the world by various minds. Thousands, again, in every period of history have given up the discussion, and yet the question remains fresh as ever. Often in the turmoil and struggle of our lives we seem to forget it, but suddenly some one dies — one, perhaps, whom we loved, one near and dear to our hearts, is snatched away from us — and the struggle, the din and turmoil of the world around us, cease for a moment, and the soul asks the old question, “What after this? What becomes of the soul?”… read more