Weighing in from the cutting-edge frontiers of science, today's most forward-thinking minds explore the rise of "machines that think".

These books are getting lazier. I don't think any editorial oversight is happening here - anything that anyone can be bothered to write will be put into the book (including worthless 2 line smartass observations). The handful of insightful opinions are not worth dredging for through this miasma of mediocrity and cheap sound-bites from people many of who have no interest or expertise in the subject.
This is the last book in this series I plan on reading, if the editor can't be bothered to curate the entries then what value is he bringing? One entry is about watching northern lights. The author doesn't even mention AI, she just gushes over how wonderful anticipation is. And huskies. Why is this in the book?! I'm done. ( )

It's not the nobody has a clue, there are clues. There's also a dumpster load of ' red herrings ' , so there's just no clear picture of what's going to happen with any of this. Going to have to wait and see.

The Edge (www.edge.org) question for 2015 was 'What do you think about machines that think?'. This is a philosophical question, not a scientific one. It asks for an opinion about a fuzzily defined term (think) about things (machines) that may or may not already be doing it (depending on how you define both words). What is thinking? How is related to mind, consciousness, or intelligence? What is a machine? Are people machines? In this collection of 186 short essays, notable personalities in the arts and sciences expound on such questions. I found some insightful, some informative, and some inane. A leap many took was to assume the question meant machines that think like humans, which is not quite what was asked. Personally, I don't see why anyone would expect machines to think like humans anymore than they would expect dogs or dolphins or aliens from some other planet to. Nor do I understand why anyone would want them to. Humans can think rationally, but they don't do it consistently, and they're not especially skilled at it. Why duplicate human cognitive flaws in silicon? Several of the essayists seem to share my opinion on this. But regardless of your position, there are ideas in these pages that will get you thinking no matter how you define the term. ( )

Just didn't care enough about this year's topic. ( )