Nilesh Jasani's Reviews > The Singularity is Nearer

In this latest offering, the renowned futurist revisits his groundbreaking concept of technological singularity. However, the eagerly anticipated update to the nearly 20-year-old seminal work falls short of expectations over and above the revised date when he expects Singularity to arrive. Instead, the book feels hastily assembled. Absolutely, the new date – before the end of this decade – will likely make this book a must-read piece of work for many, but it is likely that most, like this reviewer, will walk away not much smarter.

The book's primary shortcoming is its lack of fresh insights. Rather than delving deeper into the evolving landscape of technology and its implications for the singularity, it rehashes familiar territory. The author misses a golden opportunity to provide better justifications for why he expects machines to be better than humans in almost all aspects by 2029 and not 2045. More importantly, the book fails to discuss the implications of machines working on themselves.

At the least, the update book should have re-examined the core concepts of singularity in light of the vast amount of new information available since the original publication. A glaring omission is the lack of discussion on recent technological breakthroughs. The book overlooks innovations in mobile telephony and social media that were not expected in the first work, which is perhaps ok, but also highly topic-relevant developments in deep tech. Notably absent is any meaningful exploration of neural networks, including RNNs, CNNs, and the game-changing advent of transformer and post-transformer technologies. These advancements have profound implications for machine intelligence, intentionality, and purpose-driven AI – topics that are supposed to be what the book is all about.
Instead, the book veers into well-trodden territory, offering a broad overview of technological progress over centuries and projecting exponential growth into the future—a topic extensively covered in numerous other books, TED Talks, and industry reports.

A significant portion of the book is devoted to societal progress, summarizing work better articulated by other authors like Steven Pinker. While interesting, the author's optimism about technology's impact on employment and his speculations about future innovations across various fields don't offer much novelty either.

On the positive side, the author's unwavering optimism and recounting of technological advancements do provide some valuable insights. His ability to picture potential future developments across various sectors is commendable, even if not groundbreaking.

Overall, the book may become the book of the season for most readers, but it serves more as a general recap of well-covered subjects than a pioneering work like its predecessor.