The age of spirit machines

The Age of Spiritual Machines (The Age of Spiritual Machines) is a book by Ray Kurzweil (1998), of philosophical content, technological, computer and scientific, as well as pure science fiction, which talks about the history of evolution and its relationship with natural life and technology, as well as the role of man in the history of the latter and of computing and the future of this in its evolution towards the man-machine relationship.

The book is divided into three parts and an epilogue and describes the leading role of technological evolution.

• 1st part: The concept of evolution theory and its application in both human and artificial intelligence is made known. This includes the exponential nature of time according to the Law of Moore, through the history of humanity, thus giving rise to the formation of a new intelligence on Earth.

• 2nd part: It is understood how the human limitation is present in the 20th and 21st centuries and the role of the calculations and data processed in man and computer, as well as the technological advances that open new paths for man-machine integration, although the implications and limitations of computers in social contact with humanity are also given to the light in 1999.

• Part 3: Future advances in computer science and its application with man, applicable for the hundred years after 1999; this will be demonstrated with facts (as a prediction, explained by the author) that the computer will be an inalienable part of humanity even though it does not exempt from debates of various kinds in all aspects.

The epilogue contains a reflection about the role played by the laws of evolution in the field of artificial intelligence and a possible destiny of intelligence in controlling the universe.

Although the author has written the entire book and it is partly explained personally by Kurzweil, a conversation throughout the content of the book in the form of an interview with a fictitious character who is probably the author himself is not surprising, the one who reveals her name at the end (Molly).

Predictions about successive advances in technology

2009 - 2018

• People will mainly use portable computers, which will have become spectacularly lighter and thinner than ten years earlier. Personal computers will be available with many sizes and shapes, and will often be accommodated in clothing and jewelry such as wristwatches (for example, Apple Watch), rings, earrings, and other ornaments. Computers with a high resolution visual interface will vary from rings, pins and credit cards to the size of a thin book.

• People will typically have at least a dozen computers over and around their bodies, which will be connected by local network. These computers will provide similar facilities to mobile phones, phones and browsers, provide automatic identity (to drive commercial transactions and allow entry into safe areas), navigation addresses, and other services.

• For most, these real personal computers will not have mobile parts. Memory will be completely electronic, and most personal computers will not have keyboards.

• Rotary memories (hard disks, CD-ROM, DVD) will be on the way to disappear, although these magnetic memories will still be used on server computers with large amounts of stored information. Most users will have servers in their homes and offices where they will store large amounts of digital "objects", including their software, databases, musical documents, movies, and virtual reality environments (although these will still be at an early stage of development). They will be services to keep their own digital objects in central repositories, although most people will prefer to keep their private information under their own physical control.

• The wires will start disappearing. Communications between components, such as pointer devices, microphones, screens, printers, and occasional keyboard, will use short-distance wireless technology.

• Computers will routinely include wireless technology to connect to a global omnipresent network, providing instantaneous and reliable broadband communication. Digital objects such as books, musical albums, movies and software will be quickly distributed as data files through the wireless network, and typically lack a physical object associated with them.

• Most of the text will be created through software continuous voice recognition (CSR), although the keyboards will continue to be used. The CSR will be very precise, much more than the transcriptors used only a few years before.

• User's linguistic interfaces (LUI) will also be everywhere, combining CSR and natural language understanding. For routine tasks, such as simple business transactions and requests for information, the LUI will be quite sensitive and accurate. They will, however, be closely focused on certain specific tasks. They will often be combined with animated personalities. Interacting with an animated personality to make a purchase or make a reservation will be like talking to a person via videoconference, except for the fact that the person will be simulated.

• Computer screens will have all the visual qualities of the paper — high resolution, high contrast, great angle of vision, and absence of blinking. Books, magazines and newspapers will now be read routinely on screens that will be the size of, for example, small books.

• Screens will also be used in glasses. These special glasses will allow users to see the normal visual environment while creating a virtual image that will seem to hold in front of them. These virtual images will be created by a small laser mounted within the glasses that will project the images directly on the retina of the user.

• The speakers will be replaced by very small microprocessor-based devices that can create high-quality three-dimensional sound. This technology will be based on the creation of audible frequency sounds created by the interaction of tones of very high frequencies. As a result, very small speakers can create a very robust three-dimensional sound.

• A personal computer of $1,000 (1999) will be able to perform around a billion calculations per second. The supercomputers will have a hardware that will match at least the capacity of the human brain (20 billion calculations per second). Unused computers will be collected on the Internet, creating virtual supercomputers in parallel with a hardware with the capacity of the human brain.

• There will be growing interest in mass neuronal networks in parallel, genetic algorithms and other chaotic theories or computational complexity; however, most computing calculations will still be done through the conventional sequential process, although with some limited parallel processing.

• Research on the reverse engineering of the human brain will have been initiated through destructive scanners of the brains of newly deceased people and non-invasive scanners through magnetic resonance imaging of living people.

• The creation of autonomous machines created by nanoengineering (i.e. machines built atom by atom and molecule by molecule) will have been demonstrated and will include their own computer controls. However, nanoengineering will not yet be considered a practical technology.

• Although schools will not yet be of the last generation, the great importance of the computer as a knowledge tool will be widely recognized. Computers will play a central role in all facets of education, as in other spheres of life.

• Most of the reading will be done on screens, although the "base installed" of paper documents will be even formidable. The generation of paper documents will be declining, however, as books and other documents of the centuryXX. are quickly scanned and stored. Documents around 2009 will frequently be embedded in motion pictures and sounds.

• Students of all ages will typically carry a own computer, which will be like a graphic tablet of an approximate weight of a pound with a very high visual resolution, suitable for reading. Students will interact with their computers mainly with the voice and a pencil-like device. The keyboards will still exist, but most of the textual language will be created with the voice. Educational material will be accessed through wireless communication.

• Smart computer courses will have emerged as a common way of learning. Recent controversial studies have shown that students can learn basic skills such as reading and math with software interactive as easily as with human teachers, particularly when the proportion of students to human teachers is greater than one to one. Although studies have been attacked, most students and their parents have accepted this concept for years. The traditional way of a human teacher instructing a group of children will still be somewhat prevalent, but schools will be increasingly based on approaches software, remaining human teachers to mainly address issues such as motivation, psychological well-being and socialization. Many children will learn to read on their own using their personal computers before entering primary school.

• Preschool and primary education students will routinely read at their intellectual level using software from text to voice conversion before learning to read. These reading systems a complete picture of the documents, and you can read the text out loud while highlighting what is being read. Synthetic voices will sound totally human. Although some educators at the beginning of the centuryXXI expressed concern that students could be overly based on the software reading, such systems will have been easily accepted by children and their parents. Studies will have shown that students improve their reading skills by being exposed to text presentations in a visual and auditory way synchronized.

• Distance learning (e.g., classes and seminars where participants are geographically dispersed) will be common.

• Learning will begin to become a significant part of most jobs. The training and development of new skills will begin to emerge as an ongoing responsibility in most careers, and not just an occasional supplement, as the level of skill required for significant jobs increases more and more.

• People with disabilities will quickly begin to overcome their inconveniences through smart technology in 2009. Students with routine reading problems will lessen their disability by reading conversions from text to voice.

• Word-to-blind reading machines will now be very small, cheap, the size of the palm of the hand, and can read books (those that still exist in paper format) and other printed documents, as well as other real-world texts such as signs and viewers. These reading systems will also be experts in reading the thousands of billions of electronic documents that will be instantly available through the ubiquitous wireless global network.

• After decades of ineffective attempts, useful navigation devices will be introduced that can assist the blind to avoid physical obstacles in their way, as well as to be guided, using the technology of the global positioning system (GPS). A blind person will be able to interact with his personal reading and navigation systems through a bidirectional voice communication, as a lazarine dog that reads and speaks.

• Deaf or hearing impaired people will frequently carry machines that will translate the text voice, showing a real-time transcription or an animated person expressing themselves in the sign language. They will have eliminated the main communication problem associated with the deafness, and they will also be able to translate what is being spoken to another language in real time, so they will often be used by hearing people as well.

• Computer-controlled prosthesis devices have been introduced. These "walking machines" will allow paraplegics to walk and climb stairs. Protective devices will not yet be useful for all paraplegic people, as many physically disabled people will present joints with years of non-use. However, the advent of this technology will further motivate the replacement of these joints.

• There will be a growing perception that blindness, deafness and physical impediment do not cause disadvantages. The disabled will describe their disabilities as mere inconveniences. Intelligent technology will have become the great leveler of possibilities.

• Phone translation technology (where you speak English and your Japanese friends hear you in Japanese, and vice versa) will be commonly used for many language pairs. It will be a routine capacity of a personal computer, which will also serve as a phone.

• The telephone communication will be mainly wireless, and will normally include high-resolution images in motion. Meetings of all types and sizes will occur between geographically separate participants.

• There will be effective convergence, at least in terms of hardware and software corresponding, of all means, that will exist as digital objects (i.e. files) distributed by the omnipresent global network of broadband wireless communication. Users can instantly download books, magazines, newspapers, television, radio, movies, and other forms of software to your highly portable personal communication devices.

• Virtually all communication is digital and encrypted, with public keys available to government authorities. Many individuals and groups, including but not limited to criminal organizations, will use an additional layer of virtually undecipherable encrypted code without keys for third parties.

• Touch technology will appear and allow people to touch and feel objects and other people away. These strength and feedback devices will be used in games and training simulators.

• Interactive games will normally include enveloping visual and sound environments, although a satisfying touch surround environment will not be available. The chat channels of the late 1990s will have been replaced by virtual environments where you can have appointments with people with full visual realism.

• People will have sexual experiences away with other people as well as with virtual partners. However, the lack of an enveloping touch environment will have kept virtual sex off the dominant current. Sexual partners will be popular as forms of sexual entertainment, but they will be more like games than something real. And phone sex will be much more popular now that phones usually include high resolution and moving images and real time of the person on the other side.

• Obviting occasional corrections, the ten years that led to 2009 will have seen continued economic expansion and prosperity due to the dominance of the cultural content of products and services. The greatest gains will continue to be in market values. Deflation will worry economists from the beginning of the centuryXXIBut they'll soon check it was positive. The high-tech community will note that a significant deflation had already existed in the industries software and hardware for many years without detriment.

• The United States will continue to be the economic leader because of its primacy in popular culture and its business environment. Since the information markets will be major global markets, the United States will have greatly benefited from the history of its immigrants. To be understood by all the peoples of the world (especially the descendants of peoples of the world who had faced a high risk for a better life) will be the ideal heritage for the new knowledge-based economy. China has also appeared as a strong economic power. Europe will be years away from Japan and Korea to take Americans' emphasis on venture capital, employee reserve options, and tax policies that annihilate companies, although these practices will have become popular around the world.

• At least half of all transactions will be made online.

• Intelligent assistants that combine continuous voice recognition, natural language understanding, problem solving, and animated personalities will normally help find information, answer questions, and drive transactions. These attendees will have become a predominant interface to interact with information-based services, with a wide range of options available.

• Most book shopping, musical albums, videos, games, and other forms software they will not imply a physical object, so new economic models will have emerged to distribute these forms of information. One will buy these information objects “offering” by virtual shopping centers, testing and selecting objects of interest, making a fast and secure online transaction, and then quickly downloading the information via high-speed wireless communication. There will be many types and gradations to access these products. A book, a musical album, video, etc., will be bought, giving the user permanent access. Alternatively, you can rent the access to read, view or listen once, or several times. Or you can rent the access for every minute. Access may be limited to a person or group of persons (e.g., a family or a company). Either access will be limited to a particular computer, or to any computer used by a particular person or by a set of people.

• There will be a sharp trend towards the geographical separation of working groups. People will work together despite living and meeting in different places.

• The middle home will have more than one hundred computers, most of which will be housed in built-in appliances and communication systems. The domestic robots will have appeared, but they will not yet be fully accepted.

• Smart roads will be available, mainly for long distance travel. Once the guide sistem of the car computer is fixed on the control sensors of these motorways, one can rest and relax. The local roads, however, will still be predominantly conventional.

• A company from east Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line will have exceeded the billion dollars in the capital market.

• Privacy will have become an important political issue. The virtually constant use of communication technologies will begin to leave a very detailed trace of each movement made by each person. The dispute, of which there will be a great deal, will have placed some restrictions on the wide distribution of personal data. Government agencies, however, will continue to have the right to access people ' s archives, resulting in the emergence of invulnerable encryption technologies among the population.

• There will be a growing neo-light movement, as the abilities ladder continues to grow rapidly. As with older ludi movements, their influence will be limited by the level of prosperity made possible by technology. The movement will achieve the establishment of continuing education as a fundamental right associated with employment.

• There will be a continuous concern for a submerged class in which the skill ladder has left behind. The size of that class will seem stable, however. Although it will not be politically popular, this class will be politically neutralized by public assistance and the generally high level of prosperity.

• High quality of computer screens, and facilities software computer-assisted visual rendering will have made the computer screen an opportunity for visual art. Most of visual art will be the result of collaboration between human artists and their software Smart art. Virtual paintings (high resolution screens hung on the wall) will have become popular. More than always showing the same work of art, or with a conventional painting or a smart poster, these virtual paintings can change the visualized work with a verbal order of the user, or they can change cyclically through art collections. These are works created by human artists or original art created in real time by software cyber art.

• Human musicians will mix with cybernetics. Music creation will have been made available to people who are not musicians. Creating music will not necessarily require fine driving coordination of the use of traditional controllers. Cybernetic systems of musical creation will allow people who appreciate music but do not have musical knowledge or practice to create music in collaboration with their software automatic composition. Interactive music generated by the brain, which will create a resonance between the brain waves of the user and the music he hears, will be another popular genre.

• Musicians will commonly use electronic controllers that will emulate the style of execution of the old acoustic instruments (e.g. piano, guitar, violin, percussion), but there will be a wave of interest in the new "aircraft" controllers in which music can be created by moving hands, feet, mouth, and other parts of the body. Other controllers will involve interaction with specially designed devices.

• Writers will use voice-activated text processing; grammatical editers will now be useful; and the distribution of written documents from articles to books will not normally involve paper and ink. Software improvement of style and automatic editing will be widely used to improve writing quality. It will also be widely used software to translate works into many languages. However, the central process of creating written language will be less affected by technologies software intelligent than visual and musical arts. Despite this, "ciberntic" authors will begin to appear.

• Beyond musical recordings, images, and film videos, the most popular type of digital entertainment object will be software virtual experience. These interactive virtual environments will allow the descent of virtual rivers, to travel in delta wing through the Grand Canyon, or to have an intimate encounter with the preferred movie star. Users will also experience in fantasy environments without equivalent in the physical world. The visual and hearing experience of virtual reality will be convincing, but the touch interaction will still be limited.

• In war, computer security and communication will be the main focus of the United States Defense Department. It will generally be recognized that the side that can maintain the integrity of its computer resources will dominate the battlefield.

• Humans will generally be far from the battle scene. The war will be dominated by unmanned intelligent airborne devices. Many of these flying weapons will be the size of small birds, or smaller.

• The United States will continue to be the dominant military power in the world, which will be widely accepted by the rest of the world, as most countries will focus on economic competition. Military conflicts between nations will be rare, and most conflicts will be between nations and small groups of terrorists. The greatest threat to national security will come from biological weapons.

• Biomedical engineering treatments will have reduced cancer, heart disease and many other health problems. Significant progress has been made in understanding the basis of the disease information process.

• Telemedicine will be widely used. Doctors will be able to examine patients through visual, sound and tactile examination. Health clinics with relatively cheap equipment and a single technician will provide health care in remote areas where doctors had previously been scarce.

• The recognition of computer-based patterns will be used normally to interpret visual data and other diagnostic procedures. The use of non-invasive visual technologies will have increased substantially. Diagnosis will almost always involve collaboration between a human doctor and an expert pattern recognition system.

• Doctors will routinely consult knowledge-based systems (usually through bidirectional voice communication with images), which will provide an automatic guide, access to the latest medical research, and practice guides.

• Clinical stories of a lifetime will be kept in computer databases. Concern about access to these stories (as with many other personal information databases) will have emerged as an important issue.

• Doctors will be trained in virtual reality environments, which will include a touch interface. These systems will simulate the visual, hearing and tactile experience of medical procedures, including surgery. Simulated patients will be available to continue medical education, for medical students, and for people who simply want to play as doctors.

• There will be a renewed interest in Turing's test, which was proposed by Alan Turing in 1950 as a way of checking intelligence on a machine. Although computers will still fail in the test, it will grow the confidence that they will spend in a decade or two.

• There will be much speculation about the potential to feel (i.e., consciousness) of computer-based intelligence. The increasingly apparent intelligence of computers will have stimulated interest in philosophy.

2019 - 2028

• A $1,000 computer will have as much brute power as the human brain.
• The sum of computer power of all computers will be comparable to the total brain power of the human race.
• Computers will be hosted in the environment (within furniture, jewelry, walls, clothing, etc.)
• People will experience virtual reality in three dimensions by means of glasses and contact lenses that will project images directly to the retina (visualizer (visualizer)display) retinal). Together with a hearing source (auriculars), users will be able to telecommunication with other people and access the Internet.
• These special glasses and contact lenses can provide "augmented reality" and "virtual reality" in three different ways. First, they will be able to project "directory visits" (HUD) through the user's visual field, supersing images that remain fixed in the environment regardless of the user's perspective or orientation. Second, objects or virtual people could be rendered by glasses in fixed places, so when the user's eyes look elsewhere, objects would remain in place. Third, devices could completely block the real world and completely immerse the user in a virtual reality environment.
• People will communicate with their computers through a bidirectional dialogue and gestures instead of keyboards. In addition, most of this interaction will occur through computerized assistants with different personalities that the user can select or customize. Relating to computers will therefore be more and more similar to being related to humans.
• Most commercial transactions or requests for information will involve dealing with a simulated person.
• Most people will have more than one personal computer, although the concept of what is a "computer" has changed considerably: Computers will no longer be limited in terms of design to laptops or CPUs contained in a large box connected to a monitor. Instead, devices with the possibilities of a computer will come with all kinds of unexpected shapes and sizes.
• The cables that connect computers to the peripherals will have disappeared almost completely.
• Rotary computer memories (hard disk, compact disk, DVD, etc.) will no longer be used.
• Three-dimensional nanotubes will be the dominant computer substrate.
• Massive neuronal networks in parallel and genetic algorithms will be of wide use.
• The destructive scans of the brain and non-invasive brain scans will have allowed scientists to understand the brain much better. The algorithms that allow the relatively small genetic code of the brain to build a much more complex organ will begin to transfer to computerized neuronal networks.
• Cameras the size of pins will be everywhere.
• Nanotechnology will have more possibilities and will be used for special applications, although it will not yet get preponderance. "Nanoengineering machines" will begin to be used in the industry.
• Thin, lightweight and portable displays with very high resolutions will be the preferred means to visualize documents. The aforementioned glasses and contact lenses will also be used for this same purpose, and all devices will download the information wirelessly.
• Computers will have made paper books and documents almost completely obsolete.
• Most of the teaching will be carried out through intelligent and adapted computer courses presented by computer simulated teachers. In the learning process, adult humans will have the roles of counselors and mentors rather than being academic instructors. These attendees will generally not be physically present, and will help students away.
• Students will still learn together and make social life, although they will usually do it remotely through computers.
• All students will have access to computers.
• Most human workers will spend most of the time acquiring new skills and knowledge.
• The blind will wear special glasses that will interpret the real world for them through voice. Viewers will also use these glasses to amplify their own capabilities.
• Retinal and neutral implants will also exist, but they will have limited use as they will be less useful.
• The deaf will use special glasses that will turn the voice into text or signs, and the music into images or touch sensations. Cochlear implants, among others, will be of wide use.
• People with spinal cord damage can walk and climb steps through computer-controlled nervous stimulation and exoskeletal robotic walkers.
• Language translators will be of much higher quality, and will be used routinely in conversations.
• Internet access will be completely wireless and provided by computers that can be worn or implanted.
• Devices that provide sensations on the surface of the skin of your users (e.g., body-adjusted suits and gloves) will also sometimes be used in virtual reality to complete the experience. The "virtual sex" — in which two people can have sex through virtual reality, or in which a human can practice sex with a simulated partner who only exists on a computer — will become a reality.
• When the visual and auditory virtual reality has become fashionable, the touch technology will have matured completely and will be totally compelling, although it will require the user to enter a virtual reality booth. It will be the preferred way to practice sex as it will be safe and improve the experience. This system will often be used for computer sex and for distance medical examinations.
• Global economic growth will continue. There will be no global economic collapse.
• The vast majority of commercial interactions will occur between humans and simulated retailers, or between virtual personal assistants and simulated retailers.
• Domestic robots will be everywhere and will be reliable.
• Computers will do most of the driving of vehicles—humans will in fact be banned from driving on the highways without assistance. Furthermore, when humans take command, the onboard computer system will monitor their actions and take control when the human drives recklessly. As a result, there will be very few traffic accidents.
• There will be prototypes of personal flying vehicles with microalerons. They will also be controlled mainly by computer.
• Humans will begin to have deep relationships with automatic personalities, which will have some advantages over human peers. The depth of some computer personalities will convince some people that more rights should be given.
• Public places and workplaces will be monitored everywhere to prevent violence and all actions will be recorded permanently. Privacy will be an important political issue, and some people will be protected with security codes.
• The basic needs of the lower classes will be met. (Kurzweil does not specify whether this refers to the developed world or to all countries).
• Computers will also be inside some humans in the form of cyber implants. They will be mostly used by persons with disabilities to recover some physical faculties (e.g., retinal implants that will allow the blind to see or spinal implants accompanied by mechanical legs that will allow paralytics to walk).
• Most roads will have automated driving systems — networks of monitoring and communication devices that will enable computer-controlled cars to safely drive.
• Robot-human relationships will begin as simulated personalities become more compelling.
• Virtual artists — creative computers capable of producing their own art and music — will emerge in all fields of the arts.
• While a growing number of human beings will believe that their computers and simulated personalities with which they interact are intelligent to the point of human consciousness, experts will rule out the possibility that any one can pass the Turing test.
• Broadband Internet communication and ubiquitous connectivity will be available at all times; interaction with virtual personalities as the main interface; effective language technology (natural language process, voice recognition, voice synthesis).

2029 - 2048

• A personal computer will be 1000 times more powerful than the human brain.
• Most of the computer will be made by computers.
• More progress has been made in understanding the secrets of the human brain. Hundreds of different sub-regions with specialized functions will have been identified. Some of the algorithms that codify the development of these regions will have been decrypted and incorporated into computers of neuronal networks.
• Massive neuronal networks in parallel, which will be built through reverse engineering of the human brain, will be of common use.
• The glasses and headphones used to provide virtual reality will now be obsolete thanks to the existence of computer implants that will go inside the eyes and ears. The implants will be both permanent and removed and put. They will allow a direct interface with Internet-based computers, communications and applications. These implants will also be able to record what the user sees and hears.
• Implants designed for a direct connection to the brain will also be available. They will be able to increase natural senses and improve elevated brain functions such as memory, learning speed and intelligence in general.
• Computers will now be able to learn and create new knowledge completely independent and without human help. Scanning the huge content of the Internet, some computers will literally "know" every small piece of public information (every scientific discovery, every book and film, every public statement, etc.) generated by humans.
• Direct brain implants will allow users to enter a virtual reality of total immersion—with full sensory stimulation—with no external equipment. People can have their minds in a totally different place at any time. This technology will be widely used.
• Most of the communication will occur between humans and machines rather than humans.
• The industrial, agricultural and transport sectors of the economy will be almost completely automated and will employ very few humans. Throughout the world, poverty, war and disease will be almost non-existent because technology will alleviate gaps.
• The growth of artificial intelligence will lead to a real movement of the “robot rights”, and there will be an open public debate on what kind of civil rights and legal protections machines should have. The existence of humans with high levels of cyber-growth and a greater number of other people with less extreme cyber implants will change the definition of what constitutes a “human being”.
• Although computers will routinely pass Turing's test, the controversy will persist about whether machines are as smart as humans in all areas.
• The artificial intelligences will claim to be conscious and will openly ask for recognition of that fact. Most people will admit and accept this new reality.
• The reverse engineering of the human brain will have been completed.
• Non-biological intelligence will combine the subtlety and strength of recognition of human intelligence patterns with the speed, memory and ability to share knowledge of the machinal intelligence.
• Non-biological intelligence will continue to grow exponentially while biological intelligence will remain fixed.

2049 - 2071

• Foods will often be "composed" by nanomachines. These will be externally indistinguishable from the "naturals", but they can become healthier since production can be controlled at the molecular level. This technology will decouple the food production of climate conditions and the availability of natural resources. One implication of this is that the meat production will no longer require the slaughter of animals.
• The distinction between virtual reality and "real" reality will become confused as the nano-robots begin to be used in a common way, allowing the immediate composition or decomposition of all kinds of physical objects.

2072 - 2098

• Peakingenieria (scale technology of billionths of subway) will be implemented.

2099

• The human brain will have been completely studied by reverse engineering and will understand its entire functioning.
• Natural human thought will have no advantage over the minds of computers.
• The machines will have reached the same legal status as humans.
• Humans and machines will be mixed in the physical and mental world. Cybernetic brain implants will allow humans to melt their minds with artificial intelligences.
• Consequently, there will be no clear distinction between humans and machines.
• Most conscious beings will lack a permanent physical form.
• The world will be irreversibly populated by artificial intelligences that will exist completely as thinking computer programs capable of instantly passing from one computer to another via the Internet (or anything else equivalent in 2099). These computer-based beings will be able to manifest themselves in the physical world when they want to create or assume control of robotic bodies, with artificial intelligences also able to control several bodies at once.
• Individual beings will be constantly mixed and separated, making it impossible to determine how many "persons" are on Earth.
• This new plasticity of consciousness and the ability of beings to unite their minds will severely alter the nature of their own identity.
• Most interpersonal interactions will occur in virtual environments. In fact, that two people are physically in the real world to have a conversation or a commercial transaction without any technological interference will be very rare.
• Organic humans will be a small minority of intelligent life forms on Earth. Even between Homo sapiens the use of computer implants that deepen the skills will be something that will exist everywhere and that will be accepted as normal. The small fraction of humans who choose to remain "natural" and without modifications will actually exist, but in a plane of consciousness different from that of others, so it will be impossible to fully interact with artificial intelligences or highly modified humans.
• The "natural" humans will be protected from extermination. Despite their shortcomings and weaknesses, humans will be respected by artificial intelligences for having been the creators of the machines.
• Since knowledge and skills can be instantly downloaded and understood by most intelligent beings, the learning process will be compressed into something instant rather than the experience of years of struggle of normal humans. Free from this time-consuming burden, artificial intelligences will now focus their energies on making new discoveries and contributions.
• The artificial intelligences will be able to divide their attention and energies into countless directions, allowing a being to control a multitude of efforts simultaneously.
• Femtoingenieria (engineering on the scale of a thousandth of billionth of a metre) could be possible.
• Artificial intelligences will be communicated through a shared electronic language.
• The graphic material and music created by the machines will cover areas of the light spectrum and sound frequencies that normal humans cannot perceive.
• Money will experience a deflation.
• Some humans at least as old as those from Baby boom they will still be alive and in good condition.
• Computer viruses will be an important threat as most intelligent beings will be based on software.
• The artificial intelligences will perform "security coups" of themselves, guaranteeing a kind of immortality for cases in which for example intelligence is killed.
• The concept of "life expectancy" will have become irrelevant to humans and machines thanks to medical immortality and advanced computers.
• The pace of technological change will continue to accelerate as the 21st century approaches.

Thousands of years from now

• "Smart beings will consider the destiny of the universe." Presumably, this means that the artificial intelligences created by humans will have the ability to control the entire universe, perhaps avoiding it to die.

Criticism

In The Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil affirms that spiritual experiences have patterns of neural reactions in each area of the brain, and that they can be reproduced by software. This statement brought controversy and Discovery Institute Press published in 2002 the book Are we spiritual machines?, reflecting on the possibility that we attribute spirituality to machines.