When will Artificial Intelligence defeat Human Intelligence?

On February 15, 1965, a diffident but self-possessed high school student named Raymond Kurzweil appeared as a guest on a game show called I’ve Got a Secret. The teen played a composition on the piano, and the idea was that the judges had to guess what unusual fact in the playing of the piano. Both panelists failed to identify the secret behind Kurzweil’s astonishing piano skills making him win $200.

The music was actually composed by a computer. Kurzweil would spend much of the rest of his career working out what his demonstration meant. Creating a work of art such as what Kurzweil did is something we assume is reserved for humans only. Now, almost 50 years later, Kurzweil, along with countless other scientists believe that we are approaching a moment in time when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of greater-than-human intelligence, radically changing civilization, and perhaps human nature. When that happens, our bodies, our minds and our civilization will be completely and irreversibly transformed. Discussed by philosophers, computer scientists and women na...