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Jean-Marc Gulliet: Paper for NYU's MindBodyMedia, Summer 2001
Big Fish Questions Kurzweil "Hi!" I said, entering the hyper-high-tech post-modernist cyber-library, where Big Fish devotes a lot of time researching the secret of human stupidity. I am still convinced that Heaven is more accessible; however, Big Fish is a big guy, a big stubborn guy, thus he continues his original plan. "Hi!" He replied. "Good to see you again. Guess what?" Before I got any opportunity to answer, he added, "I just finished reading The Age of Spiritual Machines, and I have to admit that human beings often surprise me." "Hum… Why?" I finally asked, digging deeply in my memory trying desperately to find any clue about this book. Perhaps an assigned reading for the Writing Workshop One class. Maybe. I wasn’t sure. "The book, the book," he replied in such a manner that one could have thought he was talking about the Bible! "So, if I understand correctly, you have been enlightened by this reading," I asked, finally remembering the author’s name, Ray Kurzweil, a guy who surely deserved the rank of cyber-pope of the cyber-culture for his cyber-forecast about the virtual. In my opinion, if weather forecasts were as accurate as Kurzweil’s predictions, we couldn’t even known the weather of yesterday… But this is just my humble non-objective opinion. "Yea! To some extent, I can reply positively," he said. "But it might not be what you are thinking. Indeed, I have applied Dr. Keefer’s close textual analysis, and I have found numerous odd reasonings. Actually, it is not the strange way of thinking that disturbs me so much, but rather the astonishing incapacity of the author to imagine a culture, or at least the possibility of a different culture, that is not based on human self-interest." "What do you mean?" I asked. "Do you claim that man is selfish?" "Exactly, my friend, exactly!" he replied with a large warm smile. "For example, just read the table of contents: it is full of words such as ‘clearly,’ ‘obviously.’ The author proves nothing; he just states his opinion as a logical reasoning. And if you read the corresponding chapters, you will not get more support for the author’s opinion." "I see," I said. He went on, "For example, on page ix, Kurzweil envisions that in 2029 machines will have a computational capacity one thousand times superior to human brain. Nevertheless, their main preoccupation is to know if they are human or not. Could you really imagine that a silicon form of life one thousand times more intelligent than its biological creator would really want to bother itself trying to determine whether it is human or not?" "You’re right. That sounds strange," I said. "Moreover, I remember that Kurzweil implicitly defines and, consequently, reduces intelligence as equivalent to computational power. Therefore, it is easier for him to continue his forecast with the improvement of technology." "Worse," said Big Fish, "Kurzweil dissociates human evolution from the technological one, without ever explaining how and why he can do that. In fact, he makes another convenient assumption by stating that humankind has been able to evolve independently of technological improvement. The French researcher André Leroi-Gourhan argues in Gesture and Speech that brain development and technology development are linked and evolved simultaneously." "You are right," I said, "but it is late and we have to go." After this long discussion, Big Fish and I felt the urge to indulge ourselves with a couple of beers at the Irish House, a new and exciting place for us, where living poetry mingled with delicate food. “Let’s see!” Works Cited Leroi-Gourhan, André. Gesture and Speech. Trans. Anna Bostock Berger. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1993. Kurzweil, Ray. The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. 1999. New York: Penguin, 2000. Keefer, Julia. "MidSemester Lecture: Home Sweet Home." 14 June 2001 <http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/com/lecture1.html> |
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