The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

This review is for the Kindle version and Audible This book could be the basis for a taut psychological thriller or a science fiction horror story. It describes, in quite explicit detail, the willful and deliberate extinction of mankind. Let me say right here in the beginning that the author does not consider what he describes as the extinction of mankind because he believes that everything that makes us human resides in our brain and that will inevitably be understood, mapped and duplicated in an AI neural network, consciousness included. Therefore he considers the resulting Superintelligent AI, albeit non-biological, as completely human and therefore mankind simply transformed from biological to non-biological. He even uses the theory of evolution to describe the transformation of mankind from biological to biotechnical and finally to completely non-biological. I disagree with him that such a change in mankind has anything to do with evolution because evolution is considered to be a process inherently void of any external or internal construction, direction, or influenced by an intelligent agent. His stretch of the term evolution inserts into the normal process of evolution the development and final transformation of mankind from biological to non-biological, which is constructed, directed, and influenced by an external intelligent agent, man. The author seems quite comfortable with the process he describes in his book to the point that he has drastically modified his diet to try and ensure that he is alive when the early miraculous stage arrives so he may be technologically modified that he might live much longer than normal, and be cured of any biological deficiencies e.g., diabetes. He meticulously details how this process began, because it already has, but also how it will be supported and progressed and accepted by industry, the sciences, philosophies, and the majority of mankind, which is probably why the book is more than 500 pages or over 20 hours of narration. He has thought this out very extensively to the point of not just presenting his ideas but also addressing the critics of either part of his plan or the entire plan. Furthermore, he has not neglected to study and also detail the many societal institutions that are necessary to move this plan along. He notes that they already have thrown their support and money towards the current narrow forms of AI that will lead to the next acceptable stage and so on until it becomes too late to stop or take control of the process. There is an irony that pops up very late in the book of which I cannot tell if the author himself is fully aware. For the large majority of the book it is implied that incredible technological advances in the very near future will allow mankind to end many biological problems and diseases that will lead to an almost utopian existence. I want to impress upon you that I am heavily stressing the word "almost" in the previous sentence. The author never even comes close to explicitly expressing a utopian concept. However, and this is where the irony enters, he does stress the phenomenal benefit that this incredible soft AI will have on mankind in all areas philosophical, intellectual, medical, etc. areas of human existence. With the elimination of disease, via Nano-bot technology, various levels of biotechnical humans i.e., trans-humans or "enhanced humans," will continue the march towards a Superintelligent AI, that is, an AI that has not only equaled the intelligence of man but far surpasses the intelligence of man. This Superintelligent AI will be the point of no return, the same as crossing the event horizon of a black hole, which is why the word "singularity" is in the title. It will be fully autonomous able to replicate itself and to improve itself. This leads to the extinction of mankind in that only fully conscious technological AI far smarter than a man can ever be will be in existence. However, are you ready for the irony, what his idea ultimately leads to is first the huge benefits to mankind in all areas, then to enhanced humans, and finally to completely technological Super intelligent machines, is a completely new set of problems and diseases, albeit technological diseases, also come into existence. These technological problems/diseases will also be autonomous and self-replicating which will force the new "machinekind" to create technology to fight these threats e.g., Nano-bot autoimmune systems, along with many other technological "medical" and "environmental" protection systems. All the author's idea accomplishes is removing all threats to biological humanity through extinction and replacing it with a completely technological entity with very similar, although completely technological, problems and technological diseases akin to that which it has replaced. This book, regardless the very detailed explanations, held my interest all the way to the end. It never became stale, static, repetitious, or dull and never even approached boring. The previous statement is true even though I do not support his so-called "transformation" of man from biological to a Super intelligent non-biological entity. Once again the narration was superb and no doubt added to hold my interest in this lengthy material.

Among technological optimists in the world, the "singularitarians", led by Ray Kurzweil, are perhaps the most extravagant, extrapolating from the growth in information technologies of the past century. This book provides a good review of the ideas behind this optimism, and its likely consequences over the next century or so. It also raises and partly addresses a few central questions: do these extrapolations faithfully represent reality? Do they really extend beyond information technology to our control of the material world around us? And how can Kurzweil be so sure the predicted doubly exponential progress will be good for us? Kurzweil's fundamental basis for optimism is his "Law of Accelerating Returns" for information technology, which claims that the components of our information systems naturally grow in capability at an exponential rate, and that as each reaches limits, it is superceded by new technology with ever-faster exponential growth rates. Not only is the growth exponential, but the rate of growth is itself growing exponentially. Kurzweil even justifies this "law" with a mathematical appendix that suggests the exponent should grow roughly at the same rate as world GDP; he does not mention that the actual rate he finds is a little under half that (1.2% vs 2.8% annually for the 20th century). As I argue elsewhere, if one discounts the putative computation rates per thousand dollars of the early years of the twentieth century (before 1920), the numbers seem to just as easily fit a non-growing exponential rate (0% instead of 1.2%), so it seems hard to saw Kurzweil's "law" is at all proven. The next decade or so will be the real test, as integrated circuits are replaced by whatever the next technological leap coming along is. The idea that this acceleration applies beyond information technologies has also been criticized by people like physicist Jonathan Huebner, who argues that we are, far from entering an era of exponentially greater growth in capabilities, actually approaching a new dark age. Huebner claims the rate of technological innovation per person per year reached a peak a century ago, and the decline now, despite high R&D and education funding, is because developing new technology beyond what's already been done has become more and more difficult. Kurzweil has his own list of innovations to refute this, but he does not manage to make a convincing case that his "law of accelerating returns" is in any way a necessary consequence of the way the world works. In comparing linear and exponential behavior in the first chapter, Kurzweil notes that "people tend to overestimate what can be achieved in the short term (because we leave out necessary details)". There are many details Kurzweil has necessarily skipped over, but no indication that he thinks he might himself be overestimating. So we may have accelerating returns, continued exponential growth, or much slower growth or even decline, depending on your view of the world. At least with either of the growing curves, Kurzweil's other projections still apply, but under plain exponential growth would be simply delayed a bit. Kurzweil estimates a "human-level" computer would require between 10^16 and 10^19 cycles per second. With accelerating returns, that computer would be under $1000 at some point between 2020 and 2030. If the growth continues only on a simple exponential, we have to wait until after 2050 for human-scale personal computing. Kurzweil fully intends to be alive when his brain can be scanned and uploaded to a simulation of immortality, a motive that perhaps overly encourages him to argue for the earlier date. Kurzweil sets 2045 as the date for the Singularity itself, the point when all this computer power really transforms our capabilities. If the plain exponential law is true instead, the date for comparable computational capabilities is pushed back to the first decade of the 22nd century. Continued doubly exponential growth in computational power would reach the ultimate computational capacity of our solar system, between 10^70 and 10^80 calculations per second, before 2120, within the natural life-span of some alive today. Growth along the ordinary exponential would not reach such astronomical scales until the 25th century. Depending on whether such vastly enhanced intelligence can find a way around the speed-of-light restriction or not, Kurzweil sees a universe filled with computation possible less than 200 years from today. This vast growth in computational power is the central element on which much of the remaining speculation of the book rests; it's an awe-inspiring story, and even if slower growth pushes back some of the these dates a century or three, it is still worth understanding where augmenting human intelligence with machines may take us. Kurzweil's arguments for the development of real artificial intelligence in the relatively near future, given computational capabilities, seem sound enough. His commentary on the issue of subjectivity (if I get uploaded, which one is "me"?) is one of the most lucid I have ever seen. But he wastes far too much time on Searle's Chinese Room argument against AI; just a simple statement that the scale of complexity invalidates the comparison should have been enough. Kurzweil identifes three related revolutions underway: in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (strong AI). These enable the information technology revolution to be extended to the living, material and mental worlds; many wonders are to be expected. In particular, his outline for "brain uploading" depends on nanomachines capable of penetrating the brain and recording patterns there, a rather invasive (but believable) approach. At times, Kurzweil's book veers into millenial apocalypsism, at one point describing "Singularitarianism" as an almost religious belief in the ability to be uploaded and live forever, and listing several articles of faith. Kurzweil acknowledges the religious element but asserts that this is different: traditional religion is primarily a rationalization of death, while the Singularity makes death a thing of the past. How will existing religions respond to such notions? One very serious question is the possibility of threats from these new technologies - every individual will have vast power, beyond anything even nations have today. There is the "gray goo" threat from nanotechnology, as Bill Joy has articulated. Kurzweil acknowledges, yes there are dangers, in fact he agrees with Joy in many respects. Unfortunately we will have to keep several steps ahead, with "immune systems" deployed against the threats, before they wreak havoc. The most worrisome threat is from Strong AI itself - once they supercede human intelligence, what will prevent them from overcoming any bounds we may have set against harming us? Kurzweil's main response to this threat is that "they" will be "us", uploaded and greatly enhanced, so it doesn't much matter what happens to the old biological world. This is, to say the least, a little unsettling... In addition to the copious graphical illustrations, Kurzweil adds to the text some imaginary conversations with historical, present, and future persons, including Eric Drexler, Bill Gates, Darwin, and Freud. He seems to have obtained permission from the living for this; sometimes these conversations enlighten, but they seem oddly contrived. Kurzweil does have a fascinating view of our potential future. Whether near or far, this book is a useful guide to how the world will change at that point where humans transcend biology.

The author is definitely one of the most inspiring of all researchers in the field of applied artificial intelligence. For those, such as this reviewer, who are working "in the trenches" of applied AI, his website is better than morning coffee. One does not have to agree with all the conclusions reached by the author in order to enjoy this book, but he does make a good case, albeit somewhat qualitative, for the occurrence, in this century, of what he and other futurists have called a `technological singularity.' He defines this as a period in the future where the rate of technological change will be so high that human life will be `irreversibly transformed.' There is much debate about this notion in the popular literature on AI, but in scientific and academic circles it has been greeted with mixed reviews. Such skepticism in the latter is expected and justified, for scientists and academic researchers need more quantitative justification than is usually provided by the enthusiasts of the singularity, which in this book the author calls "singularitarians." Even more interesting though is that the notion of rapid technological change seems to be ignored by the business community, who actually stand to gain (or lose) the most by it. Since this book is aimed primarily at a wide audience, and not professional researchers, the author does not include detailed arguments or definitions for the notion of machine intelligence or a list of the hundreds of examples of intelligent machines that are now working in the field. Indeed, if one were to include a discussion of each of these examples, this book would swell to thousands of pages. There are machines right now used in business and industry that can manage, troubleshoot, and analyze networks, diagnose illnesses, compose music definitely worth listening to, choreograph dances, simulate human behavior in computer games, recommend and engage in financial transactions and bargaining, and many, many other tasks, a detailed list of which would, again, entail many thousands of pages. There are various psychological issues that arise when discussing machine intelligence, which if believed might prohibit the acceptance of any kind of notion of a technological singularity. For example, it is one of the historical peculiarities of research in AI that advances in the field are later trivialized, i.e. when a problem in AI becomes solved it no longer holds any mystery and is then considered to be just another part of information processing. It is then no longer regarded as `intelligent' in any sense of the term. This phenomenon in AI research might be called the "Michie-McCorduck-Hofstader effect", named after the three individuals, Donald Michie, Barbara McCorduck, and Douglas Hofstader, who discussed it some detail in their writings. If one examines the history of AI, one finds many examples of this effect, such as in knowledge discovery from databases, the use of business rules in database technologies, and the use of ontologies for information systems development. One of the best examples of this effect though is the backgammon player TD-Gammon, a highly sophisticated example of machine intelligence but which is now considered to be merely part of the "programmer's toolbox." The Michie-McCorduck-Hofstader effect is important in discussing the notion of a technological singularity since if one does occur this effect would diminish one's ability to recognize it as being real. The author does not name this phenomenon as such in the book, but a reading of it definitely reveals that he is aware of the skepticism expressed by many towards any "advances" in machine intelligence. Another one of these psychological issues regards the attitude of many philosophers on the notion of machine intelligence. In most cases they are extremely skeptical, and many AI researchers seem to feel the need to "refute" their opinions on the "impossibility" of intelligent machines. Unfortunately the author is one of these, and devotes space in the book to counter various philosophical arguments against AI. His arguments, although valid, are really a waste of time though. Such time would be better spent, both for the author and for AI researchers, in the actual development of intelligent machines. A moratorium should be declared among AI researchers on all philosophical speculation. Such musings are best left to professional philosophers, who have the time and the inclination to indulge themselves in them. There are other issues that should have been given more attention in the book, such as more details on the energy requirements needed to bring about such a singularity. In addition, the author needs to sharpen just what he means by intelligence and move away from the Turing test/human brain benchmark that he uses in the book. There are many examples of intelligence in the natural world, and these can and have been emulated in many different types of machines. Interestingly, the fixation on human intelligence and the reverse engineering of the human brain (that is exemplified in this book) has inspired a few research teams to attempt to build a machine of "general intelligence", i.e. one that can think in many different domains, as clearly humans can. But it is still an open question whether this intelligence is "entangled" over these domains, i.e. whether or not a decrease in ability in one domain will affect the ability in another. From an evolutionary or efficiency standpoint it would seem that that domain specific intelligence is more optimal. The notion of a technological singularity can be met with both exhilaration and a sense of foreboding, since (radical) change can be embraced with enthusiasm and with some feelings of anxiety. Even the author expresses this when he writes in the book that he is not "entirely comfortable" with all the consequences of a technological singularity. He has though made a fairly strong case for rapidly accelerating change. If the book concentrated more on the actual examples of intelligent machines and included the enormous amount of data from activities in applied AI that are now going on, an even stronger case could be made.

The Singularity is Near is one of the most audacious books I have ever read outside of religious texts. I mean audacious in a positive manner, in terms of the scope of material covered, the command of technical detail and inspired vision of the future. For a relative small price to pay, the reader is invited on a mind-blowing journey of what is possible in the near future, due to the relentless and overpowering reach and march of technology, and an extrapolation of where that journey is taking us. Glimpses of that extrapolation can be seen even now. Bottomline, Kurzweil explains in fairly understandable detail where the exponential growth in computer processing, microelectronic and medical advancements are taking us and the book is as much a warning for humans to get ready for the future as an inspired vision. By 2045 Kurzweil predicts the Singularity will occur; that is, humans will transcend biology, i.e. we will no longer be fully human but will be "part man/woman and part machine" or cyborg in other words. The implications are not grasped by many Kurzweil implies but he attempts to prove by extrapolation from Moore's Law and the Turing Test how that might occur. Kurzweil contends that once the Singularity is achieved, humanity will be off to the races in terms of growth potential since human intelligence will be digitized and can be uploaded, downloaded, and interchanged much like computers operate today and the human body will be increasingly machine-like as organs will become passe'. The book is an intellectual feast whether one agrees with Kurzweil or not. There are great discussions as to when computers will become indistinguishable versus humans (Turing Test), a calculation of the computing power of a rock (yes, you read correctly) and a romp in the calculation of the likely number of intelligent civilizations in the universe (Kurzweil thinks there is only one and it happens to be us) using the Drake Equation where he explains his assumptions in each variable. The latter exposition is the single best discussion I have ever read anywhere (Sagan et al)on the issue of intelligent life potential in the universe. If nothing else, the book is dynamite to any serious reader who likes to ponder the future and technological change. The downside for many readers will be Kurzweil's atheistic approach which views humanity as souless organisms and an unrealistic view that the bulk of current humanity could ever reach the potential he describes. As a Christian I don't take offense at Kurzweil's thesis, however, because the Bible argues that humanity only reaches full potential in Christ, otherwise humanistic approaches devolve into evil whether abetted by technology or not. Kurzweil is only focusing on the humanistic approach and he doesn't believe (his opinion) that the trends he is discussing will progress toward evil or cause ever more chaos in the world. That perhaps is a very tall stretch when considering the shape of our world today. Notwithstanding, I can accept Kurzweil's thesis without offense because it is one man's opinion versus that of many others. I can thank him, though, that his projections are as much a warning as to where technology can be taking us and the scientific community is not preparing the rest of us very well on that subject. Objectively, one should appreciate the brilliance of Kurzweil, his command of technical issues and his sheer attempt at depicting such a theme in the first place. Truly audacious.

Ray Kurzweil is a national treasure, a man who thinks at the level of Einstein but only 50 years later. There are a number of people like Kurzweil walking around on the planet. You have to search for them. When you find them, try to learn everything you can from them. They will help you move exponentially to the next level. He is a solitary thinker, operating on the outer limits of human knowledge, and then some. I have read his other books, and in many ways, this book is the sequel to "The Age of Spiritual Machines". What Kurzweil is writing about in this book is his belief that we are moving towards s UNION if you will, of human intelligence and machines or objects that will have equal and eventually superior intelligence. Is this the goal of the people who spend their lives working in Artificial Intelligence, probably? The difference is that Kurzweil knows so much more than his fellow thinkers, and more importantly for us, he has the capacity to convey it to those of us who are not full-time players in his arena. This quality of information conveyance is a vastly underappreciated skill. In my work investing billions of dollars in stock investments, I have access to just about anybody I want, because I have the capacity to write a check. You have no idea how many actual geniuses I deal with who CAN'T speak, let alone write the English language. Kurzweil is different. He can get these concepts across to us in an interesting language spiced with stories that we can all understand. He does not visibly suffer from the ego needs of most geniuses. He is comfortable in his own skin, and that feeling is conveyed to us also. Due to his position in the exalted world of the super Mensa types, Kurzweil can also access the top minds of who's doing what in the world today. Men who run Fortune 100 companies are more than willing to share the knowledge of their research departments with this famous thinker. At the upper levels of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Defense Department are some of the smartest people on the planet working on Artificial Intelligence, and edge-of-knowledge sophisticated computer applications. Kurzweil is in a position to interact with all of them, and this accounts for why much of what he writes about appears nowhere else. He also brings something else to the table. He is a very successful inventor and entrepreneur who is now independently wealthy. He knows what works in what environment, and what doesn't. He knows when something is being brought to market too early, or way too late. In the book he states, "I realized that most inventions fail not because the R&D department can't get them to work, but because the timing is wrong. Inventing is a lot like surfing: you have to anticipate and catch the wave at just the right moment." I am an investor; I have never heard it said better. His concept of his "intuitive linear view of history" is absolutely fascinating, and compelling. He believes that the rate of change is accelerating. For years we have all heard the concept that the only constant is change. Kurzweil believes the calculus is changing. We have already entered a world where we are witnessing a dramatic change in the rate of acceleration of change. Just ten or so years ago, cell phones had minimal impact. The Internet was nowhere near the adaptive state it is in today, and universal information flow did not exist. There were no bloggers, traditional media dominated, and people were more easily lied to by politicians with impunity. Things are changing aren't they? Here's the bottom line on Kurzweil. Most of the time you read a book to take one major thought out of the document. Sometimes it's a single page; sometimes it's a single line. Occasionally, you find that rare book where there is something on every page that is outstanding, motivating, even framework changing. This is such a book, and therein lays its importance. There's one more reason to read a book like this. Do you remember when Ross Perot ran for President? One of the metaphors he used to refer to was a story of the carpenter he knew. The words were "Measure twice, cut once." This is an example of what I call the need to be mentored. There are people that can teach you things that if you spent 20 years studying the topic, you would never learn. The carpenters' of "Measure twice, cut once," is an example of that. When you read Kurzweil, you are eliminating the need to read hundreds to thousands of other books. There is knowledge on every page for you to absorb and ponder. Buy this book, and have an orgasm of the mind. Richard Stoyeck

To say that Mr. Kurzweil is a bit of an optimist is like saying Shaq is a bit on the tall side. Mr K is positively bubbling with enthusiasim. Had it not been taken by Joe Namath a suitable title might have been "The Future's So Bright I Just Gotta Wear Shades". But therein lies the problem. Mr K comes across more like a passionate evangelical than a reasoned scientist. Whenever someone is absolutley convinced about the rightness of his assumptions I become skeptical. If you're reading this you know the premise of the book. Mr. K maintains that the pace of technological change (and by technology he means the really cool technologies, like infotech, biotech, and nanotech) is not simply increasing, but increasing exponentially, so fast that we will soon reach a point where man and machine have become one, and are brains are a million (or maybe a billion) times more powerful. When this happens everything we know will have changed forever. Moreover, this is not someting that will happen at some vague time in the far future. It's just around the corner. Mr. K even gives us a date: 2045. While reading the book I kept thinking, What if Mr. K had written this in the mid 1950's? Certainly he'd have backup for his basic premise--the changes that occured in the first half of the 20th century were indeed tremendous. Take aviation, a hot technology in those days. Mr. K would no doubt have observed that we went from Kitty Hawk to the Boeing 707 in just 50 years. Projecting ahead, Mr. K would have concluded that the second half of the century would see an even greater rate of advancement, so that by now we'd all have our own personal flying devices, zipping off to Europe in just minutes. But that hasn't happened. Certainly there has been signigicant progress in aviation in the last 50 years, but not like the 50 years before that. In some says it's worse. I suspect that since 9/11 the time it takes to fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco (from the time you get to one airport to the time you leave the other) may be longer now than it was in the 1950's. Why has this happened? A lot of this has to do with social conditions, not technological ones. Supersonic trasport never got off the ground (so to speak) in part because people didn't want the sonic booms near populated areas. These same social factors may well put the brakes on a lot of what Mr. K predicts. It's not that Mr. K's book isn't based on hard science. It's positively larded with science, so much so that my eyes tended to glaze over many times. It's just that he doesn't seem very critical. While he does acknowledge the existence of contrary opinion, he quickly (albeit politely) dismisses any cautionary thoughts. Those who disagree with his beliefs are clearly stuck-in-the-mud, nay-saying Luddites. Mr K is obviously a brilliant, well-informed scientist. I don't have enough knowledge to judge the accuracy of his facts, except in a few situations. When that does occur, though, I become unimpressed. For example, he spends a few pages talking about the increases that have occured in life expectancy, and uses this to project further increases to 150 years and then to 500 years. But he fails to distinguish between life exoectancy and life span. The former has indeed increased, but the latter has not. I am certain Mr. K knows the difference. His failure to make the distinction is misleading and disingenuous. It makes me wonder about the veracity of the rest of the book. As to the book itself, it's far too long. He repeats his points so much it seems as though he thinks that by mere repetition the reader will become more convinced that he's right. And some parts of the book are simply annoying, like the smug pseudo-conversations among past, present, and future personages that appear throughout the work. To his credit, though, his optimisim about the future is refreshing, and certainly an antidote to the dystopian views typical in literature and Hollywood (Brave New World, 1984, Blade Runner, Mad Max, The Terminator, Waterworld, etc.). The bottom line here is that Mr. K. doesn't seem to remember that virtually all predictions about the future are wrong, since the predictions are simply extrapolations of current trends. The future is never what we think it will be, and Mr. K is no exception. Then again, he could be right. If so, I just hope I can live long enough to enjoy the sigularity, so I can have my body filled with nanobots and my brain uploaded to (as he would say) a suitable substrate. Maybe being a cyborg won't be so bad.

This book is dense and large. It is packed with references to many technological advances, especially in the area of computing, biology, nanotechnology and robotics. It has so much as one could use it for research purposes as it has a collection of references to so many articles and books. The book is large in both number of pages and area of human knowledge it covers. The reader should be prepared for a long read through philosophical concepts, theories, data, graphs and arguments against many supposed adversaries. The core concept of the book is based on an evolutionary view of the Universe. Ray believes there are six evolutionary epochs: physics and chemistry, biology and DNA, brains, technology, the merger of human technology with human intelligence and the wake up of the universe. The sixth epoch marks the occurrence of singularity, when everything is one universal intelligent medium. During this evolution the non-biological beings will slowly take over the biological creatures, in a progressive fashion, growing to new levels with far greater powers than ever achieved by the human race. A starting point for demonstrating this evolution is the theory of technology evolution and the law of accelerating returns. Ray demonstrates using well known data that advances in technology not only it will continue but it will accelerate. I found this part of the book very compelling. It is only when you look at aggregate historical data that you can see emerging a consistent picture of great change. In the next chapter, Achieving the Computational Capacity of the Human Brain, I found a few very interesting concepts. As it happens, I am interested in this area and I was familiar with many ideas, but I still felt overwhelmed by the details and references of computational theories that probably are more meaningful to PhD students. Some times the author goes into the rarefied field of physics, theories of Universe, time and speed of light. There is a lot challenging the conventional in the next chapter, Achieving the Software of Human Intelligence: How to Reverse Engineer the Human Brain. I was surprised to find out how many advances occurred in the brain science, neural modelling, prosthetics and the proliferation of artificial parts that replace more and more body parts, including areas of the nervous system. This is something that experiences an exponential growth and it should have a huge impact on health services and longevity. Ray Kurzweil dives with great aplomb into three major topics: genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (AI). These three chapters have so many arguments; they are so detailed and eloquent that I started loosing interest in the book. This is an area where the author misses the opportunity to strengthen the connection with the reader that was built in the previous chapters. The information is too dry, too mechanical as if it is copied from a popular science magazine. There is a lot of pressure on the reader to believe what is written there. Overall the style is so narrowly technological, with no attention paid to other aspects of human activities that it has the potential to push the reader into an antagonistic view. We are talking here about cloning, cell engineering, human cloning, nanobots in the bloodstream, artificial intelligence, robots and human society, etc. The author has not considered the aspect of poverty at all. I have not found a single consideration given to the problem of using the technology for the benefit of all people. I am talking here about practical aspects: how do you make the technology available to anyone, who will fund it, what happens if only a few people will have the ability to evolve into superhumans, etc. The last two chapters, The Deeply Intertwine Promise and Peril of GNR and Response to Critics, loose the rigour manifested in the first chapters and they have more the role of presenting arguments against critics. This part is a little bit tiring, I could not go through it in detail and it undoes a lot of good will built in the first part of the book. It talks about warfare, fundamentalism, etc and it uses a systematic classification of potential critics with appropriate responses to each of them. There is an absolute belief that the book and the concept could do no wrong and the future will be as described here. This is the part that I was less enthusiastic about. Overall the book is rich in concepts and information, it challenges the norm and it is very provocative from an intellectual point of view. I found it very interesting despite the tendency to be too combative and mechanical at times. The book is focused on technological aspect, missing on other dimensions that one would link to an evolutionary concept.

I remember several years ago telling people I had just subjected myself to the scariest book of my life after reading one about the supposedly inevitable nuclear implosion of Pakistan. Well, now I've found something that tops it, even though author Ray Kurzweil seems to imagine his book as a bolt of optimism. Anyone who has ever played around with the arithmetic of compounding and exponential growth knows how crazy the numbers get as growth feeds on itself. The phenomenon is quite real in the world, and it describes everything from viral epidemics to Warren Buffet's fortune. Kurzweil applies the exponential growth paradigm to the future of technology. He sees not only change itself accelerating, but the rate of change too, if you can go back to your high school calculus and wrap your mind around that stomach-churning concept. The math starts quickly approaching infinity, which is why it's so weird. "Singularity" is a common term-of-art among theoretical physicists, who apply it to a variety of seemingly irrational constructs, such as an infinitely large mass compressed towards an infinitely small point. Kurzweil co-opts the term for his own purpose here to mean the point in time where artificial intelligence starts exceeding human intelligence. Thereafter, it takes over its own programming and, being so powerful, does a better and better job of it. Because things are already moving so fast today, the accelerating rate of change means that Kurzweil's Singularity is closer than even optimists might imagine - hence the book's title. He projects it to occur somewhere in the middle of this century. Afterwards, nothing will ever again be the same. In physics, unimaginable things start happening at singularity points, like energy explosions within black holes. Following Kurzweil's Singularity, the most garish science fiction fantasies start becoming commonplace. The combination of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics - which he refers to collectively as GNR - will transform all aspects of human existence. He believes, for example, that nanobots released into a person's bloodstream, will facilitate a comprehensive (that is to say, 100%) map of that person, including genetic code and nervous system, that can be uploaded and downloaded at will onto new "substrates". In other words, robotic copies of human beings - body, mind, memories, and (one presumes) soul - can be made that will appear indistinguishable from the originals. And for that matter, those originals themselves can be re-shaped at will, giving us all the opportunity to become brilliant, strong, happy, and beautiful. Kurzweil tells us that artificial circuits replicating themselves at a molecular level will merge with the biological circuits that constitute our nervous systems, giving rise an "enhanced" human super-intelligence. Once this starts happening, what we now call the Internet will in effect become telepathic, giving these enhanced humans instantaneous access to all available knowledge and information as they fashion their brave new world. You see how explosive this gets? And it's just the beginning. Once the process gets underway, the evolving super-intelligence keeps expanding until it permeates the entire planet and, still accelerating, eventually the universe. Kurzweil suggests that movement though time-space "wormholes" should one day facilitate rapid travel beyond our own galaxy, taking the process literally everywhere. I realize that my amateur's survey of Kurzweil's thinking here makes him sound like a crank. However, let there be no mistake: he is an accomplished scientist and a highly sophisticated thinker. MIT-trained, he's an expert in artificial intelligence and has put his ideas into practice as a successful tech entrepreneur. Most of this book is not even devoted to prognostications, but to an in-depth review of research currently underway that lays the practical groundwork for virtually everything he talks about (except maybe the wormhole business). While he makes numerous leaps of faith in taking us from here to there, none of his forecasts represent sheer fantasy. He is an extremely good writer, and while staying true to what is in fact pretty complex science, describes it all in a way that makes it reasonably clear to lay readers. For all his hardcore materialism, Kurzweil also has a whimsical streak. Every 50 pages or so, he breaks up his text with imaginary light-hearted debates among himself (appearing as "Ray"), various historical figures - Darwin, Freud, etc. - and a person named "Molly", who seems to be a student. Molly is bright, curious, skeptical, and not in the least bit awed by Ray or the others. The thing about Molly is that she appears in two separate guises: Molly 2004 (the year this book was being written), and Molly 2104, which is of course well beyond the Singularity. One of Kurzweil's key forecasts is that future science will learn how to arrest and even reverse the aging process, allowing people more-or-less to live forever at whatever age they choose. So Molly has made it through the Singularity and returned as a still-young woman to speak about it from experience. Kurzweil is fully aware of the potential downside to his vision. He devotes one long chapter to what he calls "The Deeply Intertwined Promise and Peril of GNR". He devotes another even longer chapter to responding to critics, who have attacked his ideas from every possible perspective. While he treats most criticisms respectfully, in the end he largely dismisses them all. One partial exception and the one specific fear he himself does seem to harbor is of self-replicating nanobots. He and other scientists who seriously debate such stuff even have a short-hand term for this specter: The Grey Goo Problem. Were self-replication somehow to spin out of control, Kurzweil explains to us that in a matter of days it could, in theory, consume the Earth's entire biomass and reduce it to "grey goo". This is indeed a troubling prospect, since this endangered biomass includes all of us. Interestingly, the cluster of criticisms that he responds to most gently are those arising from a spiritualist perspective. In one of his imaginary debates with "Molly", she repeatedly asks "Ray" if he believes in God. Ray surprises by dodging the question every time rather than saying no. Badgered into a corner, he finally avers: "For the sake of your question, we can consider God to be the universe, and I said that I believe in the universe." This sounds suspiciously like a yes, albeit with a twist. He then goes on to explain how his entire vision can be described as a picture of the universe "waking up" as enhanced human intelligence pervades its many corners. Religious people of an unorthodox bent might be tempted to embrace this image as God's self-realization. Fundamentalists of every stripe, however, were they to take K's cosmology seriously at all, would view it with disgust as the self-realization of God's Opposite Number. For me, the most unnerving question that this book triggers is who will control these accelerating technologies. Reading through many passages of the book, I found it hard not hard to be thinking about Nazi scientists beavering away at the design of their Master Race, or North Korean labs re-programming the neural patterns of citizens lacking enthusiasm for Kim Jong-Un. Kurzweil seems to trust in the pragmatic good will of the scientific community, buttressed by regulation. However, not all scientists have good will, and he says nothing about who he supposes will regulate the regulators. I also find it hard to see what joy or challenge there could be in a world where machines or enhanced humans dominate everything. People choosing not to become "enhanced" would either have it forced upon them or face life as a sub-species. The line between utopia and dystopia here is pretty fuzzy, and I find it a little scary that Kurzweil doesn't seem to care. Maybe I've seen too many science fiction movies. All that aside, I highly recommend this book. Decades ago when I was in college I used to describe about every other book I read as "changing my life", as we said in the day. Nowadays, no book changes my life, although the best ones still move the needle for me. Whether I like it or not, this one has me looking at things a little differently than I did before.

Muy interesante, el autor conoce de muchos temas.

Work of art. Except for the sections on Neuroscience and the chapters detailing the present day innovations of 2005. This book is a classic and will be revered in the coming decades.

Fabulous

Ray Kurzweil magari non è sempre moderato e cauto come altri pensatori, ma traccia una prospettiva a tinte forti, di grande ispirazione

Produto de acordo com as especificações.