Rapture for the Geeks

Will the Geeks inherit the earth? If computers become twice as fast and twice as capable every two years, how long is it before they're as intelligent as humans? More intelligent? And then in two more years, twice as intelligent? How long before you won't be able to tell if you are texting a person or an especially ingenious chatterbot program designed to simulate intelligent human conversation? According to Richard Dooling in Rapture for the Geeks--maybe not that long. It took humans millions of years to develop opposable thumbs (which we now use to build computers), but computers go from megabytes to gigabytes in five years; from the invention of the PC to the Internet in less than fifteen. At the accelerating rate of technological development, AI should surpass IQ in the next seven to thirty-seven years (depending on who you ask). We are sluggish biological sorcerers, but we've managed to create whiz-bang machines that are evolving much faster than we are. In this fascinating, entertaining, and illuminating book, Dooling looks at what some of the greatest minds have to say about our role in a future in which technology rapidly leaves us in the dust. As Dooling writes, comparing human evolution to technological evolution is worse than apples and oranges: It's appliances versus orangutans. Is the era of Singularity, when machines outthink humans, almost upon us? Will we be enslaved by our supercomputer overlords, as many a sci-fi writer has wondered? Or will humans live lives of leisure with computers doing all the heavy lifting? With antic wit, fearless prescience, and common sense, Dooling provocatively examines nothing less than what it means to be human in what he playfully calls the age of b.s. (before Singularity)--and what life will be like when we are no longer alone with Mother Nature at Darwin's card table. Are computers thinking and feeling if they can mimic human speech and emotions? Does processing capability equal consciousness? What happens to our quaint beliefs about God when we're all worshipping technology? What if the human compulsion to create ever more capable machines ultimately leads to our own extinction? Will human ingenuity and faith ultimately prevail over our technological obsessions? Dooling hopes so, and his cautionary glimpses into the future are the best medicine to restore our humanity. From the Hardcover edition.

Review :
Praise for Richard Dooling: "Rapture for the Geeks" "Surprisingly engrossing, quick-witted." --"New York Observer" "One doesn't expect a nonfiction book to be fascinating, chilling, thoughtful, and funny in equal measure. This one is. My question: When computers become smarter than humans, and especially if they take over, will they regard Rick Dooling as dangerous, prescient, sympathetic . . . or irrelevant?" --Kurt Andersen "Bet Your Life" "Manages to invoke Double Indemnity, the Old Testament, and Fountains of Wayne with equal vehemence and thriller wit. . . . If you're not hooked, you're one dead mackerel." --"Entertainment Weekly" "Fascinating . . . A socially relevant satire [that's] midway between John Grisham and Carl Hiaasen." --"The New Yorker" "Brainstorm" ""Brainstorm" is simply brilliant--hilarious, thought-provoking, and masterfully crafted. The characters are fantastic and irresistible but completely believable, and their banter is so witty and natural that a reader can forget they are debating ideas at the cutting edge of brain science and philosophy." --Steven Pinker, author of" How the Mind Works" "Exuberant . . . deeply pleasurable . . . Here is a whodunit that achieves a comic fugue-state mastery of the language of our sexually charged, violent, technocratic society." --Colin Harrison, "New York Times Book Review" "Blue Streak: Swearing, Free Speech and Sexual Harassment" "A charmingly impudent essay on language and sexual politics . . . an extremely clever and creative sort of literary acting out." --Richard Bernstein, "New York Times" "White Man's Grave" "A bravura display of satire . . .Dooling evokes the humane checks and balances of a deep world: the logic, you might say, of its magic." --Richard Eder," Los Angeles Times Book Review" "From the Hardcover edition." "One doesn't expect a non-fiction book to be fascinating, chilling, thoughtful and funny in equal measure. This one is. My question: when computers become smarter than humans, and especially if they take over, will they regard Rick Dooling as dangerous, prescient, sympathetic...or irrelevant?" --Kurt Andersen "From the Hardcover edition."