# Machines Can Inherit Everything Their Predecessors Knew by Nick Bostrom > "Machines will have several advantages: most obviously, faster processing speed — an artificial neuron can operate a million times faster than its biological counterpart. Machine intelligences may also have superior computational architectures and learning algorithms. These "qualitative" advantages, while harder to predict, may be even more important than the advantages in processing power and memory capacity. Furthermore, artificial intellects can be easily copied, and each new copy can — unlike humans — start life fully-fledged and endowed with all the knowledge accumulated by its predecessors. Given these considerations, it is possible that one day we may be able to create "superintelligence": a general intelligence that vastly outperforms the best human brains in every significant cognitive domain." > **— Nick Bostrom**, *2009, Edge Annual Question, “What Will Change Everything?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** [SUPERINTELLIGENCE](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10228) — Edge published this passage in its 2009 Annual Question collection, *What Will Change Everything?*. The full response preserves the qualifications and argument surrounding this exact extract. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2009 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2009 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first archive record for the complete yearly response cohort. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Collection:** [[collections/MARS|MARS]] - **Article:** [[articles/Modern Artificial Intelligence in the 1970s|AI in the 1970s]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|Never Going to Make It!]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Superintelligence|Superintelligence]] - [[wiki/Singularity|Singularity]] - [[wiki/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - [[wiki/Sympathetic Superintelligence|Sympathetic Superintelligence]] ## Share on Social Media ``` "Machines will have several advantages: most obviously, faster processing speed — an artificial neuron can operate a million times faster than its biological counterpart. Machine intelligences may also have superior computational architectures and learning algorithms. These "qualitative" advantages, while harder to predict, may be even more important than the advantages in processing power and memory capacity. Furthermore, artificial intellects can be easily copied, and each new copy can — unlike humans — start life fully-fledged and endowed with all the knowledge accumulated by its predecessors. Given these considerations, it is possible that one day we may be able to create "superintelligence": a general intelligence that vastly outperforms the best human brains in every significant cognitive domain." — Nick Bostrom, 2009, Edge Annual Question, “What Will Change Everything?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-nick-bostrom-machines-inherit-predecessors-knowledge ```