Inventor Ray Kurzweil, in his 2005 futurist manifesto “The Singularity Is Near,” extrapolates current trends in computer technology to conclude that machines will be able to out-think people within a few decades. In his eagerness to salute our robotic overlords, he neglects some key differences between brains and computers that make his prediction unlikely to come true.Brains have long been compared to the most advanced existing technology — including, at one point, telephone switchboards. Today people talk about brains as if they were a sort of biological computer, with pink mushy “hardware” and “software” generated by life experiences.
http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/guest-column-computers-vs-brains/
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