According to Myhrvold: "We're going through a second evolution." He believes future generations will have as little understanding for our concepts of time and space as we have for those of the Middle Ages. As an assistant to Stephen Hawking, Myhrvold witnessed the birth of A Brief History of Time and a new cosmology. "In the past," he says, "astronomers built tools, and now the bio-computer experts are at last building their new tools."

In Myhrvold's view, the combination of genetic engineering and computer science will trigger a tremendous revolution. Based on the AOL/Time-Warner model, he predicts that small biotech companies will buy out huge pharmaceuticals groups. "Their dimensions will certainly go beyond what I am capable of imagining." At this point, it's worth reminding ourselves of Myhrvold's dimensions: the former assistant to Stephen Hawking became a billionaire as Microsoft's key research strategist.

In the 1950s, many who traveled to Paris did so to see Jean-Paul Sartre holding court in a cafe or arguing with Albert Camus. Anyone entering the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria on May 19 would have seen only a 40-year-old and a 30-year-old. "Does it know what it is?" asks the 40-year-old. "It's still a baby;" the younger man replies.

The 30-year-old is Ben Goertzel, who has attracted talented people his own age from around the globe to his company to create artificial intelligence for the Internet. The 40-year-old is Nathan Myhrvold, and he gives Goertzel exactly 15 minutes to shape his destiny: "When we raise our baby, we won't talk to it about trees and flowers and teeth, as these are things it will never know. We will talk to it about files and MIDI sequences and shapes, as these are things in which we ourselves and the baby have gathered experience."