Marisa Johnson

“Finally, our new brain needs a purpose. A purpose is expressed as a series of goals. In the case of our biological brains, our goals are established by the pleasure and fear centers that we have inherited from the old brain. These primitive drives were initially set by biological evolution to foster the survival of species, but the neocortex has enabled us to sublimate them. Watson’s goal was to respond to Jeopardy! queries. Another simply stated goal could be to pass the Turing test. To do so, a digital brain would need a human narrative of its own fictional story so that it can pretend to be a biological human. It would also have to dumb itself down considerably, for any system that displayed the knowledge of, say, Watson would be quickly unmasked as nonbiological.”
― Ray Kurzweil, How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed

“as long as there is an AI shortcoming in any such area of endeavor, skeptics will point to that area as an inherent bastion of permanent human superiority over the capabilities of our own creations. This book will argue, however, that within several decades information-based technologies will encompass all human knowledge and proficiency, ultimately including the pattern-recognition powers, problem-solving skills, and emotional and moral intelligence of the human brain itself.”
― Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

“GEORGE 2048: We like to think of it as one civilization.”
― Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

“You disgust me, all of you, with your happiness! With your life that must be loved at all costs. […] I spit on your idea of life! […] You are all like dogs that lick everything they smell! […] I do not want to understand. I am here for something other than understanding. I am here to tell you no, and to die. To tell you no and to die.”
― Jean Anouilh, Antigone