The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence

by Ray Kurzweil

  Thus, while chaos increases in the Universe, it is possible for evolutionary processes that create increasingly intricate, ordered patterns to exist simultaneously. 7 Evolution is a process, but it is not a closed system. It is subject to outside influence, and indeed draws upon the chaos in which it is embedded. So the Law of Increasing Entropy does not rule out the emergence of life and intelligence.

  For the second answer, we need to take a closer look at evolution, as it was the original creator of intelligence.

  The Exponentially Quickening Pace of Evolution

  As you will recall, after billions of years, the unremarkable planet called Earth was formed. Churned by the energy of the sun, the elements formed more and more complex molecules. From physics, chemistry was born.

  Two billion years later, life began. That is to say, patterns of matter and energy that could perpetuate themselves and survive perpetuated themselves and survived. That this apparent tautology went unnoticed until a couple of centuries ago is itself remarkable.

  Over time, the patterns became more complicated than mere chains of molecules. Structures of molecules performing distinct functions organized themselves into little societies of molecules. From chemistry, biology was born.

  Thus, about 3.4 billion years ago, the first earthly organisms emerged: anaerobic (not requiring oxygen) prokaryotes (single-celled creatures) with a rudimentary method for perpetuating their own designs. Early innovations that followed included a simple genetic system, the ability to swim, and photosynthesis, which set the stage for more advanced, oxygen-consuming organisms. The most important development for the next couple of billion years was the DNA-based genetics that would henceforth guide and record evolutionary development.

  A key requirement for an evolutionary process is a “written” record of achievement, for otherwise the process would be doomed to repeat finding solutions to problems already solved. For the earliest organisms, the record was written (embodied) in their bodies, coded directly into the chemistry of their primitive cellular structures. With the invention of DNA-based genetics, evolution had designed a digital computer to record its handiwork. This design permitted more complex experiments. The aggregations of molecules called cells organized themselves into societies of cells with the appearance of the first multicellular plants and animals about 700 million years ago. For the next 130 million years, the basic body plans of modern animals were designed, including a spinal cord-based skeleton that provided early fish with an efficient swimming style.

  So while evolution took billions of years to design the first primitive cells, salient events then began occurring in hundreds of millions of years, a distinct quickening of the pace.8 When some calamity finished off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, mammals inherited the Earth (although the insects might disagree). 9 With the emergence of the primates, progress was then measured in mere tens of millions of years.10 Humanoids emerged 15 million years ago, distinguished by walking on their hind legs, and now we’re down to millions of years.11

  With larger brains, particularly in the area of the highly convoluted cortex responsible for rational thought, our own species, Homo sapiens, emerged perhaps 500,000 years ago. Homo sapiens are not very different from other advanced primates in terms of their genetic heritage. Their DNA is 98.6 percent the same as the lowland gorilla, and 97.8 percent the same as the orangutan.12 The story of evolution since that time now focuses in on a human-sponsored variant of evolution: technology.

  TECHNOLOGY: EVOLUTION BY OTHER MEANS

  When a scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right.

  When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

  The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

  —Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws of technology

  A machine is as distinctively and brilliantly and expressively human as a violin sonata or a theorem in Euclid.

  —Gregory Vlastos

  Technology picks right up with the exponentially quickening pace of evolution. Although not the only tool-using animal; Homo sapiens are distinguished by their creation of technology.13 Technology goes beyond the mere fashioning and use of tools. It involves a record of tool making and a progression in the sophistication of tools. It requires invention and is itself a continuation of evolution by other means. The “genetic code” of the evolutionary process of technology is the record maintained by the tool-making species. Just as the genetic code of the early life-forms was simply the chemical composition of the organisms themselves, the written record of early tools consisted of the tools themselves. Later on, the “genes” of technological evolution evolved into records using written language and are now often stored in computer databases. Ultimately, the technology itself will create new technology. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

  Our story is now marked in tens of thousands of years. There were multiple subspecies of Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis emerged about 100,000 years ago in Europe and the Middle East and then disappeared mysteriously about 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. Despite their brutish image, Neanderthals cultivated an involved culture that included elaborate funeral rituals—burying their dead with ornaments, including flowers. We’re not entirely sure what happened to our Homo sapiens cousins, but they apparently got into conflict with our own immediate ancestors Homo sapiens sapiens, who emerged about 90,000 years ago. Several species and subspecies of humanoids initiated the creation of technology. The most clever and aggressive of these subspecies was the only one to survive. This established a pattern that would repeat itself throughout human history, in that the technologically more advanced group ends up becoming dominant. This trend may not bode well as intelligent machines themselves surpass us in intelligence and technological sophistication in the twenty-first century.

  Our Homo sapiens sapiens subspecies was thus left alone among humanoids about 40,000 years ago.

  Our forebears had already inherited from earlier hominid species and subspecies such innovations as the recording of events on cave walls, pictorial art, music, dance, religion, advanced language, fire, and weapons. For tens of thousands of years, humans had created tools by sharpening one side of a stone. It took our species tens of thousands of years to figure out that by sharpening both sides, the resultant sharp edge provided a far more useful tool. One significant point, however, is that these innovations did occur, and they endured. No other tool-using animal on Earth has demonstrated the ability to create and retain innovations in their use of tools.

  The other significant point is that technology, like the evolution of life-forms that spawned it, is inherently an accelerating process. The foundations of technology—such as creating a sharp edge from a stone—took eons to perfect, although for human-created technology, eons means thousands of years rather than the billions of years that the evolution of life-forms required to get started.

  Like the evolution of life-forms, the pace of technology has greatly accelerated over time.14 The progress of technology in the nineteenth century, for example, greatly exceeded that of earlier centuries, with the building of canals and great ships, the advent of paved roads, the spread of the railroad, the development of the telegraph, and the invention of photography, the bicycle, sewing machine, typewriter, telephone, phonograph, motion picture, automobile, and of course Thomas Edison’s light bulb. The continued exponential growth of technology in the first two decades of the twentieth century matched that of the entire nineteenth century. Today, we have major transformations in just a few years’ time. As one of many examples, the latest revolution in communications—the World Wide Web—didn’t exist just a few years ago.

  WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY?

  As technology is the continuation of evolution by other means, it shares the phenomenon of an exponentially quickening pace. The word is derived from the
Greek tekhnē, which means “craft” or “art”, and logia, which means “the study of.” Thus one interpretation of technology is the study of crafting, in which crafting refers to the shaping of resources for a practical purpose. I use the term resources rather than materials because technology extends to the shaping of nonmaterial resources such as information.

  Technology is often defined as the creation of tools to gain control over the environment. However, this definition is not entirely sufficient. Humans are not alone in their use or even creation of tools. Orangutans in Sumatra’s Suaq Balimbing swamp make tools out of long sticks to break open termite nests. Crows fashion tools from sticks and leaves. The leaf-cutter ant mixes dry leaves with its saliva to create a paste. Crocodiles use tree roots to an- ♦ chor dead prey.15

  What is uniquely; human is the application of Knowledge-recorded knowledge-to the fashioning of tools. The knowledge base represents the genetic code for the evolving technology. And as technology has evolved, the means for recording this knowledge base has also evolved, from the oral traditions of antiquity to tne written design logs of nineteenth-century craftsmen to the computer-assisted design databases of the 1990s.

  Technology also implies a transcendence of the materials used to comprise it. When the elements of an invention are assembled in just the right way, they produce an enchanting effect that goes beyond the mere parts. When Alexander Graham Bell accidentaly wire connected two moving drums and solenoids (metal cores wrapped in wire) in 1875, the result transcended the materials he was working with. For the time, a human voice was transported, magically it seemed/to a.remote location.Most assemblages are just that: random assemblies. But when materials-and in the case of modern technology,information-are assembled in just the right way, transcendence occurs. The assembled object becomes far greater than the sum of its parts.

  The same phenomenon of transcendence occurs in art, which may properly be regarded as another form of human technology. When wood, varnishes, and strings are assembled in just the right way, the result is right way, there is magic of another sort: music. Music goes beyond mere sound. It evokes a response-cognitive, emotional, perhaps spiritual-in the listener, another form of transcendence. All of the arts share the same goal: of communicating from artist to audience. The commucation is not of unadorned data, but of the more important items in the phenomenological garden: feelings, ideas, experiences, longings. The Greek meaning of tekhnē logia includes art as a key manifestation of technology.

  Language is another form of human-created technology. One of the primary applications of technology is communication, and language provides the foundation for Homo sapiens communication. Communication is a critical survival skill. It enabled human families and tribes to develop cooperative strategies to overcome obstacles and adversaries. Other animals communicate. Monkeys and apes use elaborate gestures and grunts to communicate a variety of messages. Bees perform intricate dances in a figure-eight pattern to communicate where caches of nectar may be found. Female tree frogs in Malaysia do tap dances to signal their availability. Crabs wave their claws in one way to warn adversaries but use a different rhythm for courtship.16 But these methods do not appear to evolve, other than through the usual DNA-BASED evolution. These species lack a way to record their means of communication, so the methods remain static from one generation to the next. In contrast, human language does evolve, as do all forms of technology. Along with the evolving forms of language itself, technology has provided ever-improving means for recording and distributing human language.

  Homo sapiens are unique in their use and fostering of all forms of what I regard as technology: art, language, and machines, all representing evolution by other means. In the 1960s through 1990s, several well-publicized primates were said to have mastered at least childlike language skills. Chimpanzees Lana and Kanzi pressed sequences of buttons with symbols on them. Gorillas Washoe and Koko were said to be using American Sign Language. Many linguists are skeptical, noting that many primate “sentences” were jumbles, such as “Nim eat, Nim eat, drink eat me Nim, me gum me gum, tickle me, Nim play, you me banana me banana you.” Even if we view this phenomenon more generously, it would be the exception that proves the rule. These primates did not evolve the languages they are credited with using, they do not appear to develop these skills spontaneously, and their use of these skills is very limited.17 They are at best participating peripherally in what is still a uniquely human invention-communicating using the recursive (self-referencing), symbolic, evolving means called language.

  The Inevitability of Technology

  Once life takes hold on a planet, we can consider the emergence of technology as inevitable. The ability to expand the reach of one’s physical capabilities, not to mention mental facilities, through technology is clearly useful for survival. Technology has enabled our subspecies to dominate its ecological niche. Technology requires two attributes of its creator: intelligence and the physical ability to manipulate the environment. We’ll talk more in chapter 4, “A New Form of Intelligence on Earth,” about the nature of intelligence, but it clearly represents an ability to use limited resources optimally, including time. This ability is inherently useful for survival, so it is favored. The ability to manipulate the environment is also useful; otherwise an organism is at the mercy of its environment for safety, food, and the satisfaction of its other needs. Sooner or later, an organism is bound to emerge with both attributes.

  THE INEVITABILITY OF COMPUTATION

  It is not a bad definition of man to describe him as a tool-making animal. His earliest contrivances to support uncivilized life were tools of the simplest and rudest construction. His latest achievements in the substitution of machinery, not merely for the skill of the human hand, but for the relief of the human intellect, are founded on the use of tools of a still higher order.

  —Charles Babbage

  All of the fundamental processes we have examined—the development of the Universe, the evolution of life-forms, the subsequent evolution of technology—have all progressed in an exponential fashion, some slowing down, some speeding up. What is the common thread here? Why did cosmology exponentially slow down while evolution accelerated? The answers are surprising, and fundamental to understanding the twenty-first century.

  But before I attempt to answer these questions, let’s examine one other very relevant example of acceleration: the exponential growth of computation.

  Early in the evolution of life-forms, specialized organs developed the ability to maintain internal states and respond differentially to external stimuli. The trend ever since has been toward more complex and capable nervous systems with the ability to store extensive memories; recognize patterns in visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli; and engage in increasingly sophisticated levels of reasoning. The ability to remember and to solve problems—computation—has constituted the cutting edge in the evolution of multicellular organisms.

  The same value of computation holds true in the evolution of human-created technology. Products are more useful if they can maintain internal states and respond differentially to varying conditions and situations. As machines moved beyond mere implements to extend human reach and strength, they also began to accumulate the ability to remember and perform logical manipulations. The simple cams, gears, and levers of the Middle Ages were assembled into the elaborate automata of the European Renaissance. Mechanical calculators, which first emerged in the seventeenth century, became increasingly complex, culminating in the first automated U.S. census in 1890. Computers played a crucial role in at least one theater of the Second World War, and have developed in an accelerating spiral ever since.

  THE LIFE CYCLE OF A TECHNOLOGY

  Technologies fight for survival, evolve, and undergo their own characteristic life cycle. We can identify seven distinct stages. During the precursor stage, the prerequisites of a technology exist, and dreamers may contemplate these elements coming together. We do not, however, regard dreaming to be the same as inventing
, even if the dreams are written down. Leonardo da Vinci drew convincing pictures of airplanes and automobiles, but he is not considered to have invented either.

  The next stage, one highly celebrated in our culture, is invention, a very brief stage, not dissimilar in some respects to the process of birth after an extended period of labor. Here the inventor blends curiosity, scientific skills, determination, and usually a measure of showmanship to combine methods in a new way to bring a new technology to life.

  The next stage is development, during which the invention is protected and supported by doting guardians (which may include the original inventor). Often this stage is more crucial than invention and may involve additional creation that can have greater significance than the original invention. Many tinkerers had constructed finely hand-tuned horseless carriages, but it was Henry Ford’s innovation of mass production that enabled the automobile to take root and flourish.

  The fourth stage is maturity. Although continuing to evolve, the technology now has a life of its own and has become an independent and established part of the community. It may become so interwoven in the fabric of life that it appears to many observers that it will last forever. This creates an interesting drama when the next stage arrives, which I call the stage of the pretenders. Here an upstart threatens to eclipse the older technology. Its enthusiasts prematurely predict victory. While providing some distinct benefits, the newer technology is found on reflection to be missing some key element of functionality or quality. When it indeed fails to dislodge the established order, the technology conservatives take this as evidence that the original approach will indeed live forever.