In the closing session of the 1998 Telecosm conference, hosted annually by Gilder Publishing and Forbes at Lake Tahoe, inventor and author Ray Kurzweil engaged a number of critics. He advocated “Strong Artificial Intelligence” (AI), the claim that a computational process sufficiently capable of altering or organizing itself can produce “consciousness.” The session had an unexpectedly profound impact, not least because a number of important issues from technology to philosophy converge on this one issue. In this volume, the Discovery Institute, with the help of the contributors, has reproduced and expanded upon that initial discussion. Computers are becoming more powerful at an ever-increasing rate, but will they ever become conscious? Artificial intelligence guru Ray Kurzweil …
