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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
slow-paced
[The singularity:] is not a certainty but in my opinion is a plausibility in the working lifetimes of most people here, that there will be perhaps something superhuman come along. We will either create or become something superhuman, in various ways.
Vernor Vinge
Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.
Alvin Toffler
You can't write this story. Neither can anyone else.
John W. Campbell
This is a difficult book to review. It's a futurist treatise on how ever-accelerating changes will change society. And it's a love letter to technology, Mr. Kurzweil is obviously enamored of computers. It's also very well written, particularly for such a dense topic. The Singularity is Near reads like a cross between an academic paper and an Isaac Asimov science popularization.
The basic premise is that technology is progressing at an ever-increasing rate, and at a certain point, change will continue so rapidly that it's difficult to predict anything beyond that point, the singularity. It's a fascinating concept, and one I've been introduced to in the fiction of Charles Stross. The future will not look like the present with better tech, it's going to be pretty unrecognizable. Possible technologies such as genetic engineering, nanotech manufacturing, and robotics and artificial intelligence (the author's "GNR" triumvirate), will transform not only how we live but what we think of as a human being. Artificial intelligences, critical to the theory of the singularity, are by definition capable of expanding their own capabilities, and will drive much change.
It's an ambitious work, and not the first book the author has written on this topic. It does have weak spots, namely the tendency to assume that technology will progress according to plan, not accounting for technological setbacks very well. All we've seen in the last few centuries is progress, so of course that's all we ever will see.
To the book's credit, it does include a chapter on the dangers of these technologies. The "grey goo" scenario, where out of control self-replicating nanobots consume our biosphere for raw materials, is particularly chilling, but there are other equally deadly ways for hostile "strong" AI or perhaps genetically engineered plague vectors to wipe out the human race. Responses to the critics of the arguments presented in the book tends to be dismissive, however.
The Singularity is Near is hardly a book to be read during a lazy afternoon on the beach, but it's very rewarding and thought-provoking if you stick with it.
Vernor Vinge
Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.
Alvin Toffler
You can't write this story. Neither can anyone else.
John W. Campbell
This is a difficult book to review. It's a futurist treatise on how ever-accelerating changes will change society. And it's a love letter to technology, Mr. Kurzweil is obviously enamored of computers. It's also very well written, particularly for such a dense topic. The Singularity is Near reads like a cross between an academic paper and an Isaac Asimov science popularization.
The basic premise is that technology is progressing at an ever-increasing rate, and at a certain point, change will continue so rapidly that it's difficult to predict anything beyond that point, the singularity. It's a fascinating concept, and one I've been introduced to in the fiction of Charles Stross. The future will not look like the present with better tech, it's going to be pretty unrecognizable. Possible technologies such as genetic engineering, nanotech manufacturing, and robotics and artificial intelligence (the author's "GNR" triumvirate), will transform not only how we live but what we think of as a human being. Artificial intelligences, critical to the theory of the singularity, are by definition capable of expanding their own capabilities, and will drive much change.
It's an ambitious work, and not the first book the author has written on this topic. It does have weak spots, namely the tendency to assume that technology will progress according to plan, not accounting for technological setbacks very well. All we've seen in the last few centuries is progress, so of course that's all we ever will see.
To the book's credit, it does include a chapter on the dangers of these technologies. The "grey goo" scenario, where out of control self-replicating nanobots consume our biosphere for raw materials, is particularly chilling, but there are other equally deadly ways for hostile "strong" AI or perhaps genetically engineered plague vectors to wipe out the human race. Responses to the critics of the arguments presented in the book tends to be dismissive, however.
The Singularity is Near is hardly a book to be read during a lazy afternoon on the beach, but it's very rewarding and thought-provoking if you stick with it.
This book introduces a very interesting and compelling theory by Kurzweil. His vision is a very Utopian future, where no poverty, hunger, or pain is left, and the intelligence quickly spreads to convert the entire galaxy into one ultimate thinking machine.
While I do think that his ideas are a bit too far fetched, and timeline is very optimistic, he gives a very nice analysis of the past trends and extrapolates them into future, making his vision seem inevitable.
I am very intrigued by this and hope for everyone's sake that he is right.
I will surely try to live as long as I can, since the prospect of uploading my mind to a computer, having unlimited possibilities and never having to die is lucrative, to say the least.
4 stars because some things get quite repetitive, and the book doesn't read fast.
While I do think that his ideas are a bit too far fetched, and timeline is very optimistic, he gives a very nice analysis of the past trends and extrapolates them into future, making his vision seem inevitable.
I am very intrigued by this and hope for everyone's sake that he is right.
I will surely try to live as long as I can, since the prospect of uploading my mind to a computer, having unlimited possibilities and never having to die is lucrative, to say the least.
4 stars because some things get quite repetitive, and the book doesn't read fast.
It was great. Highly recommended if youre interested in the future of technology.
Ray Kurzweil is prozac for scientists. While other scientific linked to the society, Ray paints a very bright future for us where GNR (genetics, nanotechnology and robotics) will solve solve all the world problems: medical, environmental, sociological...
If I read Kurzweil, I remember why it is fun to be an engineer, combining sciences from all different domains to create new technology to reshape mankind. I do not agree with all what he has to say (technology is not available to all and will likely create as many problems as it solves, do we really want to become demi-gods, immortal and living only for intellectual pleasures?), but it sure is an interesting read.
If I read Kurzweil, I remember why it is fun to be an engineer, combining sciences from all different domains to create new technology to reshape mankind. I do not agree with all what he has to say (technology is not available to all and will likely create as many problems as it solves, do we really want to become demi-gods, immortal and living only for intellectual pleasures?), but it sure is an interesting read.
In which Kurzweil tells you about not just the singularity but basically every technology that he finds interesting.
Very interesting stuff. When it comes to the future, just as present day life, it is all matter of perception. Will things be the way Ray describes? He definitely has a piece to the puzzle. His perception of things to come is both thought provoking, and worthwhile.
This took a while.
My problem with this book - and Kurzweil - isn't necessarily the technical exposition of it. Even with the criticisms against it, I think he makes a fairly strong - if repetitive - argument for the "law" of accelerating returns. I think transhumanism is a fairly significant possibility, even, just on a vastly later timeline. But there's something to be said for a book by a futurist that doesn't leave me optimistic about the eventualities described here, but rather uncomfortable with the idea of the future that Kurzweil is such a fervent proponent of.
There's a lot of intriguing information on the road nonbiological intelligence might take going forward, but broad human, social and economic implications are largely brushed aside in the book, if not outright ignored.
To imagine a truly egalitarian utopia rising in the way Kurzweil describes here just seems extremely unlikely, and this book has far from convinced me otherwise.
My problem with this book - and Kurzweil - isn't necessarily the technical exposition of it. Even with the criticisms against it, I think he makes a fairly strong - if repetitive - argument for the "law" of accelerating returns. I think transhumanism is a fairly significant possibility, even, just on a vastly later timeline. But there's something to be said for a book by a futurist that doesn't leave me optimistic about the eventualities described here, but rather uncomfortable with the idea of the future that Kurzweil is such a fervent proponent of.
There's a lot of intriguing information on the road nonbiological intelligence might take going forward, but broad human, social and economic implications are largely brushed aside in the book, if not outright ignored.
To imagine a truly egalitarian utopia rising in the way Kurzweil describes here just seems extremely unlikely, and this book has far from convinced me otherwise.
Overly optimistic on the benefits-vs.-risks scale, but generally fascinating.