Exit Homo sapiens, stage left

摘要

According to evolutionary biologists and palaeontologists, about 99 per cent of all species that have ever inhabited the Earth are now extinct. If you believe the thesis of these two books, Homo sapiens' day in the sun as the leading intellectual force on this planet is also just about over. In fact, Kurzweil and Moravec both turn out the light for humans somewhere in the middle of the twenty-first century, at what Kurzweil would call the "dawning of the age of spiritual machines".