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1-Page Summary of The Age of Spiritual Machines
Overview
While the world was once run by technology that would seem primitive today, exponential growth has led to a new era of intelligent machines. This is not unlike how humans developed intelligence and used it to advance themselves. The development of artificial intelligence will allow us to continue our own evolution and reach new heights as we become more like those intelligent machines.
The universe was formed by the big bang, and life on Earth began with single-celled organisms. In 1999, computers will be capable of doing things we can’t even imagine today. We humans are limited in our biology; however, there is nothing that says we have to stay that way.
Big Idea #1: Time slowed down when the universe first developed but sped up as life-forms evolved.
Technology is growing rapidly. We now live in a world of artificial intelligence, drones and 3D printing. But this rapid change stands in contrast to the origins of the universe, which began at a slow pace.
The universe was born about 15 billion years ago, and it took just 10-43 seconds for the newly created cosmos to cool down to a temperature low enough for gravity to develop.
About 10-34 seconds after gravity developed, the universe had cooled to a billion billion degrees. At that time, subatomic particles were formed and electromagnetic forces emerged. Approximately 10-10 seconds after matter was created, electromagnetic forces like light began to emerge. The temperature then dropped further to trillion degrees, which allowed quarks to form protons and neutrons.
As the universe expanded, it became slower and more spread out.
The universe started with the big bang, but it took a long time for things to develop. It was hundreds of thousands of years before the first atom formed and millions more before galaxies were created. Earth didn’t exist until nine billion years after the beginning. As life-forms evolved on earth, however, time sped up. The first single-celled organisms appeared about 3.4 billion years ago and seven hundred million years later plants and animals became multicellular creatures that could propel themselves through water by using spinal cords developed 130 million years ago which marked a significant acceleration in evolutionary times
The primates were the next step in evolution, and they came into existence pretty soon. This allowed for a much faster rate of evolution to occur.
Big Idea #2: Technology and life-forms evolve exponentially thanks to a shared ability.
Evolution is confusing, but there’s one factor that plays a role in the evolution of all life. It’s called computation: the ability to store information and use it to solve problems. This ability allows for exponential evolutionary development. For example, when organs emerged as a means of maintaining internal conditions and responding to external stimuli, they were made possible by an increasingly complex nervous system that eventually allowed us to store memories and recognize patterns so we could respond accordingly.
Computation is a critical part of life, and it’s even more important in technology. Humans have invented many machines that can do things better than humans, such as computers that store information and identify patterns.
The mechanical calculating machine was first invented in the 1600s. It evolved into a more complex electrical tabulating system that stored data on punched cards. This powerful machine was used to automate the entire 1890 US Census.
Computers have allowed technology to evolve very quickly. This started in the nineteenth century, when photography and telephonic communication were invented as well as mass railroads built.
