The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (117 page)

38
. John Searle to Ray Kurzweil, December 15, 1998.

39
. Lanier, “One Half of a Manifesto.”

40
. David Brooks, “Good News About Poverty,”
New York Times
November 27, 2004, A35.

41
. Hans Moravec, Letter to the Editor,
New York Review of Books
,
http://www.kurzweiltech.com/Searle/searle_response_letter.htm
.

42
. Patrick Moore, “The Battle for Biotech Progress—GM Crops Are Good for the
Environment and Human Welfare,”
Greenspirit
(February 2004),
www.greenspirit.com/logbook.cfm?msid=62
.

43
. Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, private communication to Ray Kurzweil, February 2005.

44
. William A. Dembski, “Kurzweil’s Impoverished Spirituality,” in Richards et al.,
Are We Spiritual Machines?

45
. Denton, “Organism and Machine.”

Epilogue

1
. As quoted in James Gardner, “Selfish Biocosm,”
Complexity
5.3 (January–February 2000): 34–45.

2
. In the function
y
= 1/
x
, if
x
= 0, then the function is literally undefined, but we can show that the value of
y
exceeds any finite number. We can transform
y
= 1/
x
into
x
= 1/
y
by flipping the nominator and denominator of both sides of the equation. So if we set
y
to a large finite number, then we can see that
x
becomes very small but not zero, no matter how big
y
gets. So the value of
y
in
y
= 1/
x
can be seen to exceed any finite value for
y
if
x
= 0. Another way to express this is that we can exceed any possible finite value of
y
by setting
x
to be greater than 0 but smaller than 1 divided by that value.

3
. With estimates of 10
¹⁶
cps for functional simulation of the human brain (see chapter 3) and about 10
¹⁰
(under ten billion) human brains, that’s 10
²⁶
cps for all biological human brains. So 10
⁹⁰
cps exceeds this by a factor of 10
⁶⁴
.If we use the more conservative figure of 10
¹⁹
cps, which I estimated was necessary to simulate each nonlinearity in each neuron component (dendrite, axon, and so on), we get a factor of 10
⁶¹
.A trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion is 10
⁶⁰
.

4
. See the estimates in the preceding note; 10
⁴²
cps exceeds this by a factor of ten thousand trillion (10
¹⁶
).

5
. Stephen Jay Gould, “Jove’s Thunderbolts,”
Natural History
103.10 (October 1994): 6–12; chapter 13 in
Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History
(New York:Harmony Books, 1995).

Index

Page numbers in
italics
refer to illustrations.

aaATIII, 222

Abbott, A., 585
n

Abbott, Larry, 170, 542
n

Abbott Laboratories, 282

ABC News, 393

Abduljalil, A. M., 540
n

Abeln, G. C., 562
n
, 563
n

Abrams tanks, 332, 335

abstraction, 16, 175, 198

“Accelerating Change” conference, 504
n

accelerating returns, law of, 3, 7–14, 29, 35–110, 371, 373, 432, 441, 457, 507
n
–526
n

        communications and, 35, 48–50,
48–50
, 73, 76–77,
77
, 97, 102, 245–246, 511
n
–512
n

        computer memory and, 57–58,
57, 58
, 59, 75–76,
75, 76
, 96, 102

        conservatism of social institutions and, 472–473

        DNA sequencing and, 73–74,
73, 74
, 514
n

        economic growth and, 96–110, 433, 524
n
–526
n

        ETI and, 344

        exponential growth in, 3, 7–14, 35, 40–46, 56–84,
57–65, 67, 69–71, 73–84
, 96–101,
98, 99, 101
, 106–110,
108
, 257, 498
n

        farsighted evolution and, 47–50,
48–50

        fractal designs and, 46–47

        information, order, and evolution and, 85–94, 516
n
–523
n

        intelligence and, 265, 344, 349–351

        Internet and, 78–81,
78–81
, 95, 97, 516
n

        life cycle of a paradigm and, 43–46

        life cycle of technology and, 51–56

        miniaturization and, 42–43, 45, 57–61,
57–60
, 73, 82–84,
82–84
, 96, 102, 227

        Moore’s Law and,
see
Moore’s Law

        nature of order and, 36–43

        principles of, 40–43

        revisiting of, 491–496, 504
n

        second law of thermodynamics and, 39–40

        world hunger solution and, 224

        
see also
exponential growth

acceleration, 10, 165

actin, 175, 199–200, 383

Acura RL, 287

acute myeloblastic leukemia, 215

adenosine triphosphate (ATP), 118, 232, 234, 238, 306, 399

adenoviruses, 216

Adept Technologies, 285

Adleman, Leonard, 529
n
–530
n

Adrian, E. D., 154, 539
n

Afghanistan, 280, 332, 334

Africa:

        AIDS in, 95, 470

        GMO food in, 406, 414, 415

        natural nuclear reactor in, 139–140, 503
n

        Web access in, 469

Age of Intelligent Machines, The
(Kurzweil), 3, 24, 94, 275, 277, 279, 393, 497
n
, 518
n
, 519
n

Age of Spiritual Machines, The
(
ASM
) (Kurzweil), 3, 24, 113, 315–316, 361

        catching a fly ball examined in, 178–179

        molecular computing in, 121

        only-a-human cartoon in, 290–291,
291

        promise vs. perils of technology in, 393–394, 427

AGEs (advanced glycation end-products), 220

aging, 100, 233

        of cells, 209

        slowing and reversal of, 28, 141, 206, 210–221, 253, 256–257, 259, 323, 371, 373, 377, 397

agriculture,
17, 18, 20
, 536
n

        GMOs and, 414–415, 471

        
reduction in farm workforce and, 302, 340, 583
n

AI,
see
artificial intelligence; narrow AI; strong AI

AIDS drugs, 95, 470

Air Force, U.S., 280, 335

Air Force Strategic Missiles Evaluation Committee, 401

airplanes, aviation, 138, 146, 246, 266, 397, 409, 420

        Bernoulli’s principle and, 265

        guidance for, 8, 255, 276, 413, 435–436, 456

air pollution, 243

airports, 284

air pressure, 265

Akers, Nick, 247–248, 595
n

alanine, 210

alcohol, 247–248

algebra, 283

algorithmic information content (AIC), 37, 38

algorithms, 5, 444, 445, 461, 522
n

        brain-modeling, 148–149

        brain reverse engineering and, 147

        Church-Turing thesis and, 454, 455

        data compression, 516
n
–517
n

        decision or halting problem and, 601
n

        DNA computing and, 118

        equivalence principle and, 136–137, 536
n

        learning, 156

        minimax, 275–277

        neural net, 269, 570
n
–574
n

        parallelizing of, 439

        reversible computing and, 130–31, 132

        self-organizing, 146, 439–40, 481, 538
n
;
see also
evolutionary (genetic) algorithms

        software, 428, 438–442

Allan, Alasdair, 281

Allen, Paul, 343

Allen Telescope Array, 343,
343

Allis, G., 561
n

Allison, Graham, 596
n

Allsop, A., 552
n

alpha (fine-structure constant), 140, 356, 503
n

ALT-711 (phenacyldimenthylthiazolium chloride), 220

aluminum, 245, 246

Alzheimer’s disease, 549
n

        biotechnology and, 209, 220, 555
n

        brain reverse engineering and, 144, 188

Ameisen, J. C., 557
n

amino acids, 483

        nanotechnology and, 233,
233
, 234, 242

        in proteins, 27, 47, 85, 148, 208–210, 309, 517
n
, 550
n

amygdala, 541
n

amyloid plaque, 220, 550
n

analog, analog operations:

        in brain, 71, 126, 147–151, 428, 442, 483

        criticism from, 428, 442

        digital vs., 14, 126, 147, 149–150, 308, 428, 442, 461, 519
n

        image sensors, 533
n

        Mead’s use of, 89, 188

        transistors’ use of, 126, 149–150, 151, 188, 189, 442, 443

ANALOGY, 569
n

Ananthaswamy, Anil, 553
n

Andberg, Anders, 591
n

Anderson, Mark K., 527
n

Anderson, M. C., 544
n

Anderson, W. French, 196, 548
n

anger, 193, 379, 389, 477–478

Anger, Natalie, 551
n

angiogenesis, blocking of, 218, 222

animal rights, 378

animals:

        antiaging experiments in, 220–221

        blood-brain barrier in, 163

        brain of, 4, 129, 145, 169

        cloning of, 221, 222, 555
n
–556
n

        consciousness of, 378, 466–468

        defensive technologies tested on, 416

        elimination of suffering of, 224, 379

        gene therapy in, 215, 216

        medical nanobots in, 254–255

        memory in, 48

        moratorium on transplantation of vascularized organs of, 418

        motion detection in, 188

        observation by, 47, 48

        pattern recognition in, 16

        pigmentation of, 90

        SARS virus in, 402

        transgenic, 215, 222

        xenografts and, 418, 598
n

        
see also specific animals

Anissimov, Michael, 10, 299, 320, 321

ant colonies, 151

Anthes, Gary H., 570
n

Anthropic Cosmological Principle, The
(Barrow and Tipler), 500
n

anthropic principle, 15, 357, 359–364, 499
n
–501
n

antibiotics, 306, 409

antibodies, 242, 255, 425

antigens, 218

antiparticles, 363, 486–487, 503
n
, 521
n

antiviral medications, 511
n

apes, 72, 191, 193, 387, 509
n

        
see also specific apes

apical dendrites, 191–192,
192

Apo-A-I Milano (AAIM), 217

application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), 125, 135, 276, 445

Arai, K. I., 584
n

Arbib, Michael A., 190, 548
n