Machines to overtake humans in their intellectual abilities

Computer power will match the intelligence of human beings within the next 20 years because of the accelerating speed at which technology is advancing, according to a leading scientific "futurologist".

There will be 32 times more technical progress during the next half century than there was in the entire 20th century, and one of the outcomes is that artificial intelligence could be on a par with human intellect by the 2020s, says American computer guru Ray Kurzweil.

Machines will rapidly overtake humans in their intellectual abilities and will soon be able to solve some of the most intractable problems of the 21st century, said Kurzweil, one of 18 maverick thinkers chosen to identify the greatest technological challenges facing humanity.

Although the brain cannot match computers in terms of the straight storage and retrieval of information, it has an unrivalled capacity of associating different strands of information, to look ahead and plan, as well as performing the imaginative creativity that is at the heart of human existence.

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...3118454C385070