From that point on, there's no reason to think computers would stop getting more powerful. If you can swallow that idea, and Kurzweil and a lot of other very smart people can, then all bets are off. All that horsepower could be put in the service of emulating whatever it is our brains are doing when they create consciousness not just doing arithmetic very quickly or composing piano music but also driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions, appreciating fancy paintings, making witty observations at cocktail parties. So if computers are getting so much faster, so incredibly fast, there might conceivably come a moment when they are capable of something comparable to human intelligence. that is, the rate at which they're getting faster is increasing. According to his calculations, the end of human civilization as we know it is about 35 years away.Ĭomputers are getting faster. He believes that this moment is not only inevitable but imminent. When that happens, humanity our bodies, our minds, our civilization will be completely and irreversibly transformed. But now, 46 years later, Kurzweil believes that we're approaching a moment when computers will become intelligent, and not just intelligent but more intelligent than humans. That was Kurzweil's real secret, and back in 1965 nobody guessed it. To see creativity, the exclusive domain of humans, usurped by a computer built by a 17-year-old is to watch a line blur that cannot be unblurred, the line between organic intelligence and artificial intelligence. It's an act of self-expression you're not supposed to be able to do it if you don't have a self. Creating a work of art is one of those activities we reserve for humans and humans only. Chester Loney of Rough and Ready, Calif., whose secret was that she'd been President Lyndon Johnson's first-grade teacher.īut Kurzweil would spend much of the rest of his career working out what his demonstration meant. The panelists were pretty blasé about it they were more impressed by Kurzweil's age than by anything he'd actually done. Kurzweil then demonstrated the computer, which he built himself a desk-size affair with loudly clacking relays, hooked up to a typewriter. (Watch TIME's video "Singularity: How Scared Should We Be?") On YouTube), the beauty queen did a good job of grilling Kurzweil, but the comedian got the win: the music was composed by a computer. The idea was that Kurzweil was hiding an unusual fact and the panelists they included a comedian and a former Miss America had to guess what it was. He was introduced by the host, Steve Allen, then he played a short musical composition on a piano. 15, 1965, a diffident but self-possessed high school student named Raymond Kurzweil appeared as a guest on a game show called
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