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List Price : $21.00 Price : $10.61
List Price : $21.00 Price : $10.61
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For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology Reviews
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology Reviews
| 319 of 358 people found the following review helpful  Important extrapolations, but not as careful or concise as I wanted, By This review is from: The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Hardcover) Kurzweil does a good job of arguing that extrapolating trends such as Moore's Law is better than most alternative forecasting methods, and he does a good job of describing the implications of those trends. But he is a bit long-winded, and tries to hedge his methodology by pointing to specific research results which he seems to think buttress his conclusions. He neither convinces me that he is good at distinguishing hype from value when analyzing current projects, nor that doing so would help with the longer-term forecasting that constitutes the important aspect of the book.Given the title, I was slightly surprised that he predicts that AIs will become powerful slightly more gradually than I recall him suggesting previously (which is a good deal more gradual than most Singulitarians). He offsets this by predicting more dramatic changes in the 22nd century than I imagined could be extrapolated from existing trends. His discussion of the practical importance of... Read more 123 of 137 people found the following review helpful  Technophilic ecstacy, By Amazon Verified Purchase This review is from: The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Hardcover) 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... Read more 685 of 793 people found the following review helpful Technically brilliant, culturally constrained, By Amazon Verified Purchase This review is from: The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Hardcover) Ray Kurzweil is unquestionably the most brilliant guru for the future of information technology, but Joel Garreau's book Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human covers the same ground, with the same lack of soul, but more interesting and varied detail.This is really four booklets in one: a booklet on the imminence of exponential growth within information technologies including genetics, nano-technology, and robotics; a booklet on the general directions and possibilities within each of these three areas; a booklet responding to critics of his past works; and lengthy notes. All four are exceptional in their detail, but somewhat dry. I was disappointed to see no mention of Kevin Kelly's... Read more |
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