26 results for "Computers"

The Singularity is Near When Humans Transcend Biology

Ray Kurzweil
How Singular? How singular is the Singularity? Will it happen in an instant? Lets consider again the derivation of the word. In mathematics a singularity is a value that is beyond any limit - in essence, infinity. The Singularity as we have discussed it in this book, does not achieve infinite levels of computation, memory, as any other other measurable attribute. But it certainly achieves vast levels of all these qualities, including intelligence. With the reverse engineering of the human brain we will be able to apply the parallel, self-organizing, chaotic, algorithms of human intelligence to enormously powerful computational substrates. This intelligence will then be in a position to improve its own design, both hardware and software, in a rapidly accelerating iterative process.
Viking 2005 652 pages

Genesis: artificial intelligence, hope, and the human spirit

Kissinger, Henry,Mundie, Craig,Schmidt, Eric,Runde, Eleanor
"As it absorbs data, gains agency, and intermediates between humans and reality, AI (artificial intelligence) will help us to address enormous crises, from climate change to geopolitical conflicts to income inequality. It might well solve some of the greatest mysteries of our universe and elevate the human spirit to unimaginable heights. But it will also pose challenges on a scale and of an intensity that we have never seen--usurping our power of independent judgment and action, testing our relationship with the divine, and perhaps even spurring a new phase in human evolution. The last book of elder statesman Henry Kissinger, written with technologists Craig Mundie and Eric Schmidt, 'Genesis' charts a course between blind faith and unjustified fear as it outlines an effective strategy for navigating the age of AI."--
Little, Brown and Company 2024-11-19 249 pages

Age of Spiritual Machines

Ray Kurzweil
How We Will Live, Work, and Think in the New Age of Intelligent Machines; 1999...Computers able to perform a trillion calculations per second...Most routine business transactions take place between a human and virtual personality...Translating telephones are commonly used for most language pairs...Bioengineered treatments for cancer and heart disease greatly reduce the mortality from these diseases...Human musicians jam with cybernetic musicians. 2019...Computers equal the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain...Interaction with computers is through gestures and two-way spoken communication...Most learning conducted through software-based teachers instead of paper books and documents...Automated driving systems installed in most roads...People have relationships with automated personalities. 2029...Computers have the computing capacity of 1 000 human brains...Majority of communication does not involve a human...There is no human employment in production, agriculture or transportation...Computers have read all available human- and machine-generated literature and are now learning on their own...Machines claim to be conscious. 2049...The common use of nanoproduced food means that the availability of food is no longer affected by limited resources and bad crop weather. 2072...Picoengineering (developing technology at the scale of picometers or trillionths of a meter) becomes practical. 2099...There is no longer any clear distinction between humans and computers...Most conscious entities do not have a permanent physical presence...The goal of education, and of intelligent beings, is discovering new knowledge to learn...Life expectancy is no longer a viable term in relation to intelligent beings.
New York: Viking 1999

THE EMPEROR'S NEW MIND: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics

Penrose, Roger
For decades, proponents of artificial intelligence have argued that computers will soon be doing everything that a human mind can do. Admittedly, computers now play chess at the grandmaster level, but do they understand the game as we do? Can a computer eventually do everything a human mind can do? In this absorbing and frequently contentious book, Roger Penrose--eminent physicist and winner, with Stephen Hawking, of the prestigious Wolf prize--puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be emulated by a machine. Penrose examines what physics and mathematics can tell us about how the mind works, what they can't, and what we need to know to understand the physical processes of consciousness. He is among a growing number of physicists who think Einstein wasn't being stubborn when he said his "little finger" told him that quantum mechanics is incomplete, and he concludes that laws even deeper than quantum mechanics are essential for the operation of a mind. To support this contention, Penrose takes the reader on a dazzling tour that covers such topics as complex numbers, Turing machines, complexity theory, quantum mechanics, formal systems, Godel undecidability, phase spaces, Hilbert spaces, black holes, white holes, Hawking radiation, entropy, quasicrystals, the structure of the brain, and scores of other subjects. The Emperor's New Mind will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in modern physics and its relation to philosophical issues, as well as to physicists, mathematicians, philosophers and those on either side of the AI debate.
Oxford University Press 1990 466 pages

The human use of human beings: cybernetics and society

Wiener, Norbert
"In 1950, mathematician-philosopher Norbert Wiener ended this classic book on the place of machines in society with a warning: "We shall never receive the right answers to our questions unless we ask the right questions.... The hour is very late, and the choice of good and evil knocks at our door." Wiener, the founder of the science of cybernetics--the study of the relationship between computers and the human nervous system--was widely mislabeled as an advocate for the automation of human life. As The Human Use for Human Beings reveals, his vision was much more complex and interesting, and is more relevant in today's world of AI than anyone could have anticipated. In his new introduction, Brian Christian aptly calls Wiener the "progenitor of contemporary AI-safety discourse." Wiener hoped that machines would release people from relentless and repetitive drudgery to achieve more creative pursuits, yet he anticipated the danger of dehumanizing and displacement. His pioneering views on the human-machine relationship as a "communicative process" are only more crucial now, as we carry in our pockets AI devices that we can literally speak to. His prescient warnings illuminate our contemporary relationships with language, art, and even social media. The Human Use of Human Beings examines the implications of cybernetics for education, law, language, science, technology, as Wiener anticipates the enormous impact--in effect, a third industrial revolution--that the computer has had on our lives."-- Provided by publisher
Mariner Classics 2025-08-12 240 pages

Computability, Complexity, and Languages, Second Edition: Fundamentals of Theoretical Computer Science

Davis, Martin,Sigal, Ron,Weyuker, Elaine J.
This introductory text covers the key areas of computer science, including recursive function theory, formal languages, and automata. It assumes a minimal background in formal mathematics. The book is divided into five parts: Computability, Grammars and Automata, Logic, Complexity, and Unsolvability. * Computability theory is introduced in a manner that makes maximum use of previous programming experience, including a "universal" program that takes up less than a page. * The number of exercises included has more than tripled. * Automata theory, computational logic, and complexity theory are presented in a flexible manner, and can be covered in a variety of different arrangements.
Morgan Kaufmann 1994 609 pages

The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer

David Leavitt
A "skillful and literate" ( New York Times Book Review ) biography of the persecuted genius who helped create the modern computer. To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary computer. Then, attempting to break a Nazi code during World War II, he successfully designed and built one, thus ensuring the Allied victory. Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, but his work was cut short. As an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England, he was convicted and forced to undergo a humiliating "treatment" that may have led to his suicide. With a novelist's sensitivity, David Leavitt portrays Turing in all his humanity?his eccentricities, his brilliance, his fatal candor?and elegantly explains his work and its implications.
W. W. Norton & Company 2006-11-17 336 pages

The human test: how predictability, creativity, and the quantum mind will redefine life in the age of AI

Folman, Ron
"As data harvesting continues its exponential growth and computing power increases beyond what we can even imagine, AI and Big Data will be able to predict what we want for breakfast, what shoes we will buy, which political party we will vote for, and who we will fancy in a bar. Indeed, these deep-learning machines will know us better than we know ourselves. The day awaits when academia and big business will be able to quantify just how predictable each of us are. If indeed we are predictable like machines, to what extent are we alive, and under what definition? In The Human Test, quantum physicist Ron Folman unites findings from cognitive science, quantum physics, philosophy, and technology to offer a prescient look into this startling new era of human existence. If we are indeed found to be predictable, it will change everything we thought we knew about human nature. The Human Test strives for a new paradigm, and this new paradigm is found in human predictability. Existing monitors of general brain activity measure only very rudimentary aspects of the human experience, or what may be called human life; could the advent of a disruptive new technology bring about a much more insightful measure of who we are? While The Human Test describes a new and profound near-future impact of AI, it is rooted in a topic of paramount importance to humans: the enigma of consciousness and how it defines human life-or, what differentiates humans from all other life forms. Ultimately, The Human Test addresses some of the most fundamental questions about our species, starting with the most crucial: do we have free will, or are we merely machines? Fortunately, there is an antidote to predictability: creativity, that wondrous state of being original and inherently not predictable. Ultimately, Folman argues that if we can understand predictability, we can learn how to distance ourselves from it, and transcend to a purer idea of what human life should look like"-- Provided by publisher.
Prometheus 2025-03-25 267 pages

Methods in neuronal modeling

Christof Koch,Idan Segev
Methods in Neuronal Modeling is the first technical handbook on computational neuroscience. Written for researchers and theoreticians alike, it outlines methods and techniques used for simulating on digital computers the functional properties of single neurons from synapses, dendrites, single cells; and small invertebrate networks to large scale neural networks in the mammalian nervous system. The use of new experimental tools such as selective staining methods, membrane patch electrodes, voltage and calcium-dependent dyes, and multielectrode recordings, together with the, advent of universally available powerful computing, makes it possible to construct detailed and realistic models of neuronal systems. Methods in Neuronal Modeling addresses such questions as what can and should be simulated and what techniques should be used; what experimental parameters are crucial for such simulations, and whether these models may be verified experimentally. Chapters cover simulation of passive dendritic trees, compartmental models of single cells including neurons with a number of different ionic channels, calcium current dynamics, simulations of small invertebrate networks, simulations of the mammalian cortex, connectionists' models, and the use of parallel computers in modeling neural networks. Although the chapters were written by several authors, they are uniform in structure and notation. Detailed examples are given to clarify the different approaches. Each chapter concludes with a description of the model discussed and the details of its implementation on the computer. Christof Koch is an Assistant Professor of Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology. Idan Segev is a Lecturer in Neurobiology at the Institute of Life Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Methods in Neuronal Modeling inaugurates the new series in Computational Neuroscience, edited by Terrence J. Sejnowski and Tomaso Poggio. A Bradford Book.
MIT Press 1989-01 524 pages

The Structure of Intelligence: A New Mathematical Model of Mind

Goertzel, Ben
0. 0 Psychology versus Complex Systems Science Over the last century, psychology has become much less of an art and much more of a science. Philosophical speculation is out; data collection is in. In many ways this has been a very positive trend. Cognitive science (Mandler, 1985) has given us scientific analyses of a variety of intelligent behaviors: short-term memory, language processing, vision processing, etc. And thanks to molecular psychology (Franklin, 1985), we now have a rudimentary understanding of the chemical processes underlying personality and mental illness. However, there is a growing feeling-particularly among non-psychologists (see e. g. Sommerhoff, 1990) - that, with the new emphasis on data collection, something important has been lost. Very little attention is paid to the question of how it all fits together. The early psychologists, and the classical philosophers of mind, were concerned with the general nature of mentality as much as with the mechanisms underlying specific phenomena. But the new, scientific psychology has made disappointingly little progress toward the resolution of these more general questions. One way to deal with this complaint is to dismiss the questions themselves. After all, one might argue, a scientific psychology cannot be expected to deal with fuzzy philosophical questions that probably have little empirical signifi cance. It is interesting that behaviorists and cognitive scientists tend to be in agreement regarding the question of the overall structure of the mind."
Springer 2011-10-04 240 pages

Numerical Linear Algebra, Digital Signal Processing and Parallel Algorithms

Gene H. Golub,Paul Van Dooren
Numerical linear algebra, digital signal processing, and parallel algorithms are three disciplines with a great deal of activity in the last few years. The interaction between them has been growing to a level that merits an Advanced Study Institute dedicated to the three areas together. This volume gives an account of the main results in this interdisciplinary field. The following topics emerged as major themes of the - Singular value and eigenvalue decompositions, including applications, - Toeplitz matrices, including special algorithms and architectures, - Recursive least squares in linear algebra, digital signal processing and control, - Updating and downdating techniques in linear algebra and signal processing, - Stability and sensitivity analysis of special recursive least squares problems, - Special architectures for linear algebra and signal processing. This book contains tutorials on these topics given by leading scientists in each of the three areas. A consider- able number of new research results are presented in contributed papers. The tutorials and papers will be of value to anyone interested in the three disciplines.
Springer 2011-12-21 752 pages

The Transmission of Information

Robert M Fano
In this pioneering work, Robert M. Fano presents a comprehensive study of information theory as the basis for communication with computers. The book examines the methods and limits of transmitting and receiving information, with practical applications in digital technology and communication engineering. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Creative Media Partners, LLC 2023-07-18 38 pages

Notes on Introductory Combinatorics

Pólya, George,Woods, Donald R.,Tarjan, Robert E.
In the winter of 1978, Professor George P61ya and I jointly taught Stanford University's introductory combinatorics course. This was a great opportunity for me, as I had known of Professor P61ya since having read his classic book, How to Solve It, as a teenager. Working with P6lya, who ·was over ninety years old at the time, was every bit as rewarding as I had hoped it would be. His creativity, intelligence, warmth and generosity of spirit, and wonderful gift for teaching continue to be an inspiration to me. Combinatorics is one of the branches of mathematics that play a crucial role in computer sCience, since digital computers manipulate discrete, finite objects. Combinatorics impinges on computing in two ways. First, the properties of graphs and other combinatorial objects lead directly to algorithms for solving graph-theoretic problems, which have widespread application in non-numerical as well as in numerical computing. Second, combinatorial methods provide many analytical tools that can be used for determining the worst-case and expected performance of computer algorithms. A knowledge of combinatorics will serve the computer scientist well. Combinatorics can be classified into three enumerative, eXistential, and constructive. Enumerative combinatorics deals with the counting of combinatorial objects. Existential combinatorics studies the existence or nonexistence of combinatorial configurations.
Birkhäuser 2010-05-06 206 pages

13 Lectures on Fermat's Last Theorem

Ribenboim, Paulo
Lecture I The Early History of Fermat's Last Theorem.- 1 The Problem.- 2 Early Attempts.- 3 Kummer's Monumental Theorem.- 4 Regular Primes.- 5 Kummer's Work on Irregular Prime Exponents.- 6 Other Relevant Results.- 7 The Golden Medal and the Wolfskehl Prize.- Lecture II Recent Results.- 1 Stating the Results.- 2 Explanations.- Lecture III B.K. = Before Kummer.- 1 The Pythagorean Equation.- 2 The Biquadratic Equation.- 3 The Cubic Equation.- 4 The Quintic Equation.- 5 Fermat's Equation of Degree Seven.- Lecture IV The Naïve Approach.- 1 The Relations of Barlow and Abel.- 2 Sophie Germain.- 3 Congruences.- 4 Wendt's Theorem.- 5 Abel's Conjecture.- 6 Fermat's Equation with Even Exponent.- 7 Odds and Ends.- Lecture V Kummer's Monument.- 1 A Justification of Kummer's Method.- 2 Basic Facts about the Arithmetic of Cyclotomic Fields.- 3 Kummer's Main Theorem.- Lecture VI Regular Primes.- 1 The Class Number of Cyclotomic Fields.- 2 Bernoulli Numbers and Kummer's Regularity Criterion.- 3 Various Arithmetic Properties of Bernoulli Numbers.- 4 The Abundance of Irregular Primes.- 5 Computation of Irregular Primes.- Lecture VII Kummer Exits.- 1 The Periods of the Cyclotomic Equation.- 2 The Jacobi Cyclotomic Function.- 3 On the Generation of the Class Group of the Cyclotomic Field.- 4 Kummer's Congruences.- 5 Kummer's Theorem for a Class of Irregular Primes.- 6 Computations of the Class Number.- Lecture VIII After Kummer, a New Light.- 1 The Congruences of Mirimanoff.- 2 The Theorem of Krasner.- 3 The Theorems of Wieferich and Mirimanoff.- 4 Fermat's Theorem and the Mersenne Primes.- 5 Summation Criteria.- 6 Fermat Quotient Criteria.- Lecture IX The Power of Class Field Theory.- 1 The Power Residue Symbol.- 2 Kummer Extensions.- 3 The Main Theorems of Furtwängler.- 4 The Method of Singular Integers.- 5 Hasse.- 6 The p-Rank of the Class Group of the Cyclotomic Field.- 7 Criteria of p-Divisibility of the Class Number.- 8 Properly and Improperly Irregular Cyclotomic Fields.- Lecture X Fresh Efforts.- 1 Fermat's Last Theorem Is True for Every Prime Exponent Less Than 125000.- 2 Euler Numbers and Fermat's Theorem.- 3 The First Case Is True for Infinitely Many Pairwise Relatively Prime Exponents.- 4 Connections between Elliptic Curves and Fermat's Theorem.- 5 Iwasawa's Theory.- 6 The Fermat Function Field.- 7 Mordell's Conjecture.- 8 The Logicians.- Lecture XI Estimates.- 1 Elementary (and Not So Elementary) Estimates.- 2 Estimates Based on the Criteria Involving Fermat Quotients.- 3 Thue, Roth, Siegel and Baker.- 4 Applications of the New Methods.- Lecture XII Fermat's Congruence.- 1 Fermat's Theorem over Prime Fields.- 2 The Local Fermat's Theorem.- 3 The Problem Modulo a Prime-Power.- Lecture XIII Variations and Fugue on a Theme.- 1 Variation I (In the Tone of Polynomial Functions).- 2 Variation II (In the Tone of Entire Functions).- 3 Variation III (In the Theta Tone).- 4 Variation IV (In the Tone of Differential Equations).- 5 Variation V (Giocoso).- 6 Variation VI (In the Negative Tone).- 7 Variation VII (In the Ordinal Tone).- 8 Variation VIII (In a Nonassociative Tone).- 9 Variation IX (In the Matrix Tone).- 10 Fugue (In the Quadratic Tone).- Epilogue.- Index of Names.
Springer 2012-07-02 320 pages