The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

by Ray Kurzweil

Bayesian Nets. Over the last decade a technique called Bayesian logic has created a robust mathematical foundation for combining thousands or even millions of such probabilistic rules in what are called “belief networks” or Bayesian nets. Originally devised by English mathematician Thomas Bayes and published posthumously in 1763, the approach is intended to determine the likelihood of future events based on similar occurrences in the past.168 Many expert systems based on Bayesian techniques gather data from experience in an ongoing fashion, thereby continually learning and improving their decision making. The most promising type of spam filters are based on this method. I personally use a spam filter called SpamBayes, which trains itself on e-mail that you have identified as either “spam” or “okay.”169 You start out by presenting a folder of each to the filter.