Man and Machine Become One May 29, 2001 by Otis Port Raymond
Kurzweil spoke with BUSINESS WEEK Senior Writer Otis Port about
nanotechnology, which may enable engineers to construct
microscopic computers and robots, or nanobots, atom by atom.
These machines could dramatically affect the future of human
intelligence. Originally published June 6, 1999. Published on
KurzweilAI.net May 31, 2001. Q: Do you have any doubts that a
superior intelligence will emerge in the next few decades? A:
No. It’s inevitable. For example, nanotubes would allow
computing at the molecular level. A one-inch cube of nanotube
circuitry would be about a billion times more powerful than the
human brain, in terms of computing capacity. That raw computing
capacity is a necessary but not sufficient condition to achieve
human-level intelligence in a machine. We also need the
organization and the software to organize those resources. There
are a number of scenarios for achieving that. The most
compelling is reverse-engineering the human brain