Hmm...hope this doesn't show up twice - the first attempt appeared to
bounce, so I'm trying it again.  At any rate, I thought some of you might
find this interesting, even if you don't necessarily buy it (I myself
don't, particularly, but find it intriguing nonetheless).  If this upsets
or offends anyone, I apologize profusely...

"DNA-based evolution will eventually have to be abandoned," declares Ray
Kurzweil, one of the great inventors, scientisits, and visionaries of the
20th Century, in his new book, "The Age of Spiritual Machines." I have
permission from his publisher, Viking Books, to distribute excerpts from
the book, and I would also like to invite you to debate the author at an
upcoming series of chats.

The recipient of nine honorary doctorate degrees, honored by two U.S.
Presidents, the "restless genius" (Wall Street Journal) Ray Kurzweil has
spent a lifetime teaching computers how to act like human beings. He
developed software and devices that helped machines to see (the first CCD
scanner), read (the first omni-font OCR software), listen (the first
commercially marketed large vocabulary speech recognition), talk (the first
print-to-speech reading machine), and make music (the Kurzweil digital
piano). In "The Age of Spiritual Machines," Kurzweil says that computers
can *think,* too, and will soon exceed human intelligence.

The excerpts I have permission to distribute come from two sections of the
book. The first introduces the "Law of Accellerating Returns," projecting
computing speeds in excess of Moore's Law. The second is about "Building
Better Brains." To get the excerpts, send maito:[log in to unmask] with the
subject line "Send Kurzweil" and I will reply with a text file. You can
also find excerpts at the book's companion web site
<http://www.penguinputnam.com/kurzweil>.

If you're interested in discussing the practical and ethical implications
of these ideas with author Ray Kurzweil, you are invited to a series of
chats on the subject of "Are Human Beings Obsolete?":

=> Tuesday, February 9, at 9 p.m. Eastern Time
Book Central on America Online <Keyword: BC>

=> Wednesday, February 10, at 7 p.m. Eastern Time
Stein Online <http://www.compuserve.com/cir/>

=> Thursday, February 11, at 9 p.m. Eastern Time
ZineZone <http://www.zinezone.com/events/>

=> Thursday, February 18, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time
MSNBC <http://www.msnbc.com/chat/>

Enjoy,

Jeremy Hart
[log in to unmask]