Ray Kurzweil is a world class inventor, thinker, and futurist, with a thirty-five-year track record of accurate predictions. He has been a leading developer in artificial intelligence for more than six decades—longer than any other living person. He was the principal inventor of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, omni-font optical character recognition, print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, text-to-speech synthesizer, music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition software. Ray received a GRAMMY® Award for outstanding achievement in music technology. He is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He has written five books including The Singularity Is Near and How to Create a Mind, both New York Times bestsellers, and Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine, winner of multiple young adult fiction awards. He is a Principal Researcher and AI Visionary at Google.
“Kurzweil's vision of our super-enhanced future is completely sane
and calmly reasoned, and his book should nicely smooth the path for
the earth's robot overlords, who, it turns out, will be us.”—The
New York Times
“Kurzweil writes boldly and with a showman’s flair, expertly
guiding the lay reader into deep thickets of neuroscience.”—Kate
Tuttle, Boston Globe
“This book is a breath of fresh air . . . . Kurzweil makes an
argument for optimism.”—Laura Spinney, New Scientist
“A fascinating exercise in futurology.”—Kirkus Reviews
“It is rare to find a book that offers unique and inspiring content
on every page. How to Create a Mind achieves that and more. Ray has
a way of tackling seemingly overwhelming challenges with an army of
reason, in the end convincing the reader that it is within our
reach to create nonbiological intelligence that will soar past our
own. This is a visionary work that is also accessible and
entertaining.”—Rafael Reif, president, MIT
“Kurzweil’s new book on the mind is magnificent, timely, and
solidly argued! His best so far!”—Marvin Minsky, MIT Toshiba
Professor of Media Arts and Sciences; cofounder of the MIT
Artificial Intelligence Lab; widely regarded as “the father of
artificial intelligence”
“If you ever wondered about how your mind works, read this book.
Kurzweil’s insights reveal key secrets underlying human thought and
our ability to recreate it. This is an eloquent and
thought-provoking work.”—Dean Kamen, physicist; inventor of the
first wearable insulin pump, the HomeChoice dialysis machine, and
the IBOT mobility system; founder of FIRST; recipient of the
National Medal of Technology
“One of the eminent AI pioneers, Ray Kurzweil, has created a new
book to explain the true nature of intelligence, both biological
and nonbiological. The book describes the human brain as a machine
that can understand hierarchical concepts ranging from the form of
a chair to the nature of humor. His important insights emphasize
the key role of learning both in the brain and in AI. He provides a
credible road map for achieving the goal of super-human
intelligence, which will be necessary to solve the grand challenges
of humanity.”—Raj Reddy, founding director, Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University; recipient of the Turing Award from the
Association for Computing Machinery
“Ray Kurzweil pioneered artificial intelligence systems that could
read print in any type style, synthesize speech and music, and
understand speech. These were the forerunners of the present
revolution in machine learning that is creating intelligent
computers that can beat humans in chess, win on Jeopardy!, and
drive cars. His new book is a clear and compelling overview of the
progress, especially in learning, that is enabling this revolution
in the technologies of intelligence. It also offers important
insights into a future in which we will begin solving what I
believe is the greatest problem in science and technology today:
the problem of how the brain works and of how it generates
intelligence.”—Tomaso Poggio, Eugene McDermott Professor, MIT
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; director, MIT Center
for Biological and Computational Learning; former chair, MIT
McGovern Institute for Brain Research; one of the most cited
neuroscientists in the world
“This book is a Rosetta stone for the mystery of human thought.
Even more remarkably, it is a blueprint for creating artificial
consciousness that is as persuasive and emotional as our own.
Kurzweil deals with the subject of consciousness better than anyone
from Blackmore to Dennett. His persuasive thought experiment is of
Einstein quality: It forces recognition of the truth.”—Martine
Rothblatt, chairman and CEO, United Therapeutics; creator of Sirius
XM Satellite Radio
“Kurzweil’s book is a shining example of his prodigious ability to
synthesize ideas from disparate domains and explain them to readers
in simple, elegant language. Just as Chanute’s Progress in Flying
Machines ushered in the era of aviation over a century ago, this
book is the harbinger of the coming revolution in artificial
intelligence that will fulfill Kurzweil's own prophecies about
it.”—Dileep George, AI scientist; pioneer of hierarchical models of
the neocortex; cofounder of Numenta and Vicarious Systems
“Ray Kurzweil’s understanding of the brain and artificial
intelligence will dramatically impact every aspect of our lives,
every industry on Earth, and how we think about our future. If you
care about any of these, read this book!”—Peter H. Diamandis,
chairman and CEO, X PRIZE; executive chairman, Singularity
University; author of the New York Times bestseller Abundance: The
Future Is Better Than You Think
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