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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
I could agree with most of what he is saying in this well thought out book, except for the time scale. I don't think he is off by much, but his optimistic predictions do not realistically account for political, economic and other social factors that can slow many of this down. When we landed on the moon, just ten years after the first man in space, everyone assumed much faster growth of space-faring technologies, but out political will was just not there, and 2001 Space Odyssey still remains a science fiction. However, I too strongly believe that a technological evolution of humankind is not too far off. The next hundred years is going to be the most exciting period for our species.
Just no. This books is only about one hypothesis, technological "singularity". Then all the rest of the books is he just trying to prove his point. Fascinating idea, but he is over-fitting his data and not critiquing his own ideas the least.
And it's not even that technically written.
And it's not even that technically written.
This was a fairly heavy book to read and frankly I hope none of it comes true. đ
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
medium-paced
As well-sourced as this was, Ray Kurzweil fails to grasp the reality that humans, especially the humans in charge of things on this planet, are by and large not very nice people. I actually laughed when he applauded the response to the 2003 SARS outbreak and how they contained it using quarantine and masking. He literally cited that. I haven't actually found anything from Kurzweil on the response to SARS-CoV-2, but if I were him I would really be doubting my faith in humanity to act responsibly with regards to GNR research gone wild. Reading this book just gave me several dozen new doomsday scenarios fueled by human greed that I'd put in a sci-fi novel if it wouldn't just wind up like good old Skynet, giving the worst of the worst of us a bunch of awful ideas to put into practice.
No regrets reading it though, in spite of the existential crises. I learned a lot and my sci-fi might be better for it. Or, you know, rendered entirely useless before I can get a manuscript out the door. So it goes.
No regrets reading it though, in spite of the existential crises. I learned a lot and my sci-fi might be better for it. Or, you know, rendered entirely useless before I can get a manuscript out the door. So it goes.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes to read science fiction and wants to see how someone who is very well read in real science envisions the future.
In the beginning, I was thinking this guy was pretty crazy and was just glad that all those graphs made for some quick turning pages. But then he rather neatly summarized the general ideas about the direction of nanotechnology and biotechnology that I had absorbed while doing research, reading papers, and going to conferences. So he gained some cred. And I've taken a class about brain-machine-interfacing, so that helped me swallow alot of the neurology part. And Watson recently won Jeopardy, only a year or two after he thought we would have AI that strong.
I think many of his opinions are, at the very least, well informed. That being said, I think he is overly optimistic at the pace of technology growth and in the public's acceptance of some of his proposed ethically debatable technologies.
Gets a little repetitious, and I couldn't make myself read the last chapter where he responds to criticisms. Definitely an interesting read though--made me question the nature of person-hood, and God-hood.
In the beginning, I was thinking this guy was pretty crazy and was just glad that all those graphs made for some quick turning pages. But then he rather neatly summarized the general ideas about the direction of nanotechnology and biotechnology that I had absorbed while doing research, reading papers, and going to conferences. So he gained some cred. And I've taken a class about brain-machine-interfacing, so that helped me swallow alot of the neurology part. And Watson recently won Jeopardy, only a year or two after he thought we would have AI that strong.
I think many of his opinions are, at the very least, well informed. That being said, I think he is overly optimistic at the pace of technology growth and in the public's acceptance of some of his proposed ethically debatable technologies.
Gets a little repetitious, and I couldn't make myself read the last chapter where he responds to criticisms. Definitely an interesting read though--made me question the nature of person-hood, and God-hood.
The singularity itself is a term describing a singular point in human history, where the future of humanity will become unpredictable, because itâs changing so quickly. Imagine an artificial intelligence so smart that it constantly revolutionizes and improves itself at such a fast rate, that even the laws of physics will have a tough time catching up with it.
There are upsides and downsides to that.
Here are 3 of them:
1. The Law of Accelerating Returns says that the speed of evolution keeps increasing.
2. Self-replicating nanobots will soon replace doctors and repair your body from the inside.
3. If the nanobots go haywire, weâre screwed.
There are upsides and downsides to that.
Here are 3 of them:
1. The Law of Accelerating Returns says that the speed of evolution keeps increasing.
2. Self-replicating nanobots will soon replace doctors and repair your body from the inside.
3. If the nanobots go haywire, weâre screwed.
The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil: dislike it (2/5)
Too optimistic, too wacky, too wrong.
The full title of this book is âThe Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology,â and like its title, the book is verbose and very, very speculative. I know, I know. What should I expect from futurist Ray Kurzweil other than futuristic foo from the future? How about a book with a coherent structure? How about a book that doesnât repeat its fundamental premises multiple times in each chapter? Maybe a book that leaves out a few unsupported theoretical assumptions stated as foregone conclusions? Singularity has a few fascinating passages, some really interesting ideas, and a collection of delightfully eclectic quotes. Sadly, all the good stuff is surrounded by a repetitious screed with nearly as much substance in the footnotes as in the text.
Kurzweil starts off on the wrong foot with some wrong predictions for technological advances to appear âby the end of the decade.â Given that the book was published in 2005, and as I write this it is 2011, we should be able to fact-check some of these predictions. âWe will have the requisite hardware to emulate human intelligence with supercomputersâŚâ Nope. âComputers⌠will become essentially invisible: woven into our clothing, embedded in our furniture and environmentâŚâ Nuh uh. Yes, lots of smart devices exist now, but wearable computing turned into the smartphone, and pervasive computing isnât all that pervasive. Thereâs also a claim that the Web will become the âworldwide mesh⌠once all of its linked devices become communicating web serversâŚ.â The only real approximation of this is botnets, created with malware and harnessed by malcontents. While a few impressive networked computing projects currently exist, most folks still donât give up their CPUâs background cycles to anything productive.
After a rocky start predicting the near future, how are we expected to follow along as Kurzweil turns us into mind linked cyborgs with nanobot blood who can merge and reform our identities at will? One example: virtual reality. Over and over again we are reminded that we will soon be using fully immersive virtual reality. âBy early in the 2nd decade of this centuryâ we will have fully immersive 3D environments beamed into our eyeballs, and shortly thereafter we will be plugged in using devices that directly stimulate our sense centers in the brain. But who is going to build these environments? Are we doomed to socialize using virtual meeting places as bizarre as Second Life, furries and ambulatory vegetation and penises everywhere you look, only with more fidelity than we can currently imagine and plugged in to our brains? Who wants that?
Thereâs a lot more way-out-there stuff I could bring up from the book, but thatâs really not its worst failing. The thing that bothered me most about it was the repetition. Itâs almost as though Kurzweil at some point abandoned a reasoned thesis for truth by repetition. He goes on and on again and again about how we will know the brainâs inmost secrets, and how nanobots will solve ecological problems, and how superintelligent sentient machines will treat us wetware humans with respect and care. Itâs all very Pollyanna, and in some cases more than a little disturbing. Kurzweilâs vision of the ultimate goal of humanity is a nanobot swarm with superintelligent AI flying at near the speed of light and colonizing wherever it lands without regard for existing life of any kind. If thatâs my future, I want out.
Too optimistic, too wacky, too wrong.
The full title of this book is âThe Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology,â and like its title, the book is verbose and very, very speculative. I know, I know. What should I expect from futurist Ray Kurzweil other than futuristic foo from the future? How about a book with a coherent structure? How about a book that doesnât repeat its fundamental premises multiple times in each chapter? Maybe a book that leaves out a few unsupported theoretical assumptions stated as foregone conclusions? Singularity has a few fascinating passages, some really interesting ideas, and a collection of delightfully eclectic quotes. Sadly, all the good stuff is surrounded by a repetitious screed with nearly as much substance in the footnotes as in the text.
Kurzweil starts off on the wrong foot with some wrong predictions for technological advances to appear âby the end of the decade.â Given that the book was published in 2005, and as I write this it is 2011, we should be able to fact-check some of these predictions. âWe will have the requisite hardware to emulate human intelligence with supercomputersâŚâ Nope. âComputers⌠will become essentially invisible: woven into our clothing, embedded in our furniture and environmentâŚâ Nuh uh. Yes, lots of smart devices exist now, but wearable computing turned into the smartphone, and pervasive computing isnât all that pervasive. Thereâs also a claim that the Web will become the âworldwide mesh⌠once all of its linked devices become communicating web serversâŚ.â The only real approximation of this is botnets, created with malware and harnessed by malcontents. While a few impressive networked computing projects currently exist, most folks still donât give up their CPUâs background cycles to anything productive.
After a rocky start predicting the near future, how are we expected to follow along as Kurzweil turns us into mind linked cyborgs with nanobot blood who can merge and reform our identities at will? One example: virtual reality. Over and over again we are reminded that we will soon be using fully immersive virtual reality. âBy early in the 2nd decade of this centuryâ we will have fully immersive 3D environments beamed into our eyeballs, and shortly thereafter we will be plugged in using devices that directly stimulate our sense centers in the brain. But who is going to build these environments? Are we doomed to socialize using virtual meeting places as bizarre as Second Life, furries and ambulatory vegetation and penises everywhere you look, only with more fidelity than we can currently imagine and plugged in to our brains? Who wants that?
Thereâs a lot more way-out-there stuff I could bring up from the book, but thatâs really not its worst failing. The thing that bothered me most about it was the repetition. Itâs almost as though Kurzweil at some point abandoned a reasoned thesis for truth by repetition. He goes on and on again and again about how we will know the brainâs inmost secrets, and how nanobots will solve ecological problems, and how superintelligent sentient machines will treat us wetware humans with respect and care. Itâs all very Pollyanna, and in some cases more than a little disturbing. Kurzweilâs vision of the ultimate goal of humanity is a nanobot swarm with superintelligent AI flying at near the speed of light and colonizing wherever it lands without regard for existing life of any kind. If thatâs my future, I want out.
Pretty good. This covered a broad range of aspects of artificial intelligence but also went deep in each area to explore how it might be achieved and predicting timelines based on the accelerating rate of progress and what is currently on the horizon.
He touches on the Drake equation / Fermi paradox, and devotes a chapter at the end to exploring the various counterarguments to his vision of the future.
He touches on the Drake equation / Fermi paradox, and devotes a chapter at the end to exploring the various counterarguments to his vision of the future.