Ray Kurzweil
The Singularity Is Near
When Humans Transcend Biology
Penguin, 2006
What's inside?
The singularity is that moment in technological evolution when you're not a body, you are a pattern of information.
Recommendation
This is a strange and powerful tome. Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil makes predictions that are sweeping in their implications and bold in their specificity. In fact, some readers may think they sound more like science fiction than science. He discusses developing artificial intelligence, downloading consciousness, redesigning the body using nanotechnology and other seemingly improbable developments. Then, he goes out on a limb to predict how and when these technological advances will all intersect – a historical moment called the "singularity." At that point, he says, if humans have used technology properly, they will become godlike, solving all their problems. Kurzweil devotes nearly 80 pages to articulating and responding to the criticisms of skeptics. However, even if you reject most of Kurzweil's ideas, you can still benefit from reading his book. It is thoroughly researched, with roughly 100 pages of notes and references, and conceptually challenging. Kurzweil works hard to make it lively and accessible, providing graphs, quotations, sidebars and imaginary debates among spokespersons for various points of view. The result can become overwhelming, but it is always thought-provoking. getAbstract recommends this book to executives who are seriously interested in planning for the future, and to curious minds everywhere.
Summary
About the Author
Ray Kurzweil is the author of The Age of Intelligent Machines and The Age of Spiritual Machines, and co-author with Terry Grossman of Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever. He is an inventor who received the National Medal of Technology in 1999.
Comment on this summary
Some yaers ago, it was scifi to think about Holograms or Cloud Computing.
No doubt this is the Age of Super Information.
AI, Q Computing, Genomics....
This book is my firsr systematiced glymp to imagine how will be tomorro's SUPER HUMANS