How to Create A Mind

No recent futurist has been more influential than Ray Kurzweil. His optimistic vision of the “singularity,” the point at which man and machine are melded into a new entity, expounded in his bestselling The Singularity Is Near, has been welcomed and challenged in equal measures as the next logical step in human evolution. Now, in HOW TO CREATE A MIND (Viking; On-sale Date: November 13, 2012; ISBN: 9780670025299; 336 Pages; $27.95) Kurzweil presents a provocative exploration of the most important science project since the Human Genome. As artificial intelligence pioneer, Raj Reddy, states, “One of the eminent AI pioneers, Ray Kurzweil explains the true nature of intelligence … and provides a credible roadmap for achieving the goal of super human intelligence which will be necessary to solve the grand challenges of humanity.”

In this latest book, Kurzweil explores how the brain works, how the mind emerges from the brain and the implications of vastly increasing the powers of our intelligence. He thoughtfully examines whether or not digital brains can ever replicate a human brain’s emotional and moral intelligence, its consciousness and free will.

We are already seeing artificial intelligence go mainstream with the recent innovations of IBM’s Watson, the iPhone’s Siri, and Google’s self-driving cars. The inevitable next step is that our brains will soon be merged with the intelligent technology we are creating. By around the 2030s, nanobots in our bloodstream and brains will keep us healthier and smarter, most of our thinking will be in the cloud—unhindered by the natural limits of our biological brain and easy to backup like a hard-drive, and we will vastly speed up the learning process.

Reverse engineering the brain will usher in a new era of evolution, and show us who we really are and what we are capable of.