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The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI
The noted inventor and futurist’s successor to his landmark book The Singularity Is Near explores how technology will transform the human race in the decades to come
Since it was first published in 2005, Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near and its vision of an exponential future have spawned a worldwide movement. Kurzweil's predictions about technological advancements have largely come true, with concepts like AI, intelligent machines, and biotechnology now widely familiar to the public.
In this entirely new book Ray Kurzweil brings a fresh perspective to advances toward the Singularity—assessing his 1999 prediction that AI will reach human level intelligence by 2029 and examining the exponential growth of technology—that, in the near future, will expand human intelligence a millionfold and change human life forever. Among the topics he discusses are rebuilding the world, atom by atom with devices like nanobots; radical life extension beyond the current age limit of 120; reinventing intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud; how exponential technologies are propelling innovation forward in all industries and improving all aspects of our well-being such as declining poverty and violence; and the growth of renewable energy and 3-D printing. He also considers the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including such topics of current controversy as how AI will impact employment and the safety of autonomous cars, and "After Life" technology, which aims to virtually revive deceased individuals through a combination of their data and DNA.
The culmination of six decades of research on artificial intelligence, The Singularity Is Nearer is Ray Kurzweil’s crowning contribution to the story of this science and the revolution that is to come.
Since it was first published in 2005, Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near and its vision of an exponential future have spawned a worldwide movement. Kurzweil's predictions about technological advancements have largely come true, with concepts like AI, intelligent machines, and biotechnology now widely familiar to the public.
In this entirely new book Ray Kurzweil brings a fresh perspective to advances toward the Singularity—assessing his 1999 prediction that AI will reach human level intelligence by 2029 and examining the exponential growth of technology—that, in the near future, will expand human intelligence a millionfold and change human life forever. Among the topics he discusses are rebuilding the world, atom by atom with devices like nanobots; radical life extension beyond the current age limit of 120; reinventing intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud; how exponential technologies are propelling innovation forward in all industries and improving all aspects of our well-being such as declining poverty and violence; and the growth of renewable energy and 3-D printing. He also considers the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including such topics of current controversy as how AI will impact employment and the safety of autonomous cars, and "After Life" technology, which aims to virtually revive deceased individuals through a combination of their data and DNA.
The culmination of six decades of research on artificial intelligence, The Singularity Is Nearer is Ray Kurzweil’s crowning contribution to the story of this science and the revolution that is to come.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published June 25, 2024
About the author
Ray Kurzweil
39 books2,177 followersRay Kurzweil is a world class inventor, thinker, and futurist, with a thirty-five-year track record of accurate predictions. He has been a leading developer in artificial intelligence for 61 years – longer than any other living person. He was the principal inventor of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, omni-font optical character recognition, print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, text-to-speech synthesizer, music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition software. Ray received a Grammy Award for outstanding achievement in music technology; he is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He has written five best-selling books including The Singularity Is Near and How To Create A Mind, both New York Times best sellers, and Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine, winner of multiple young adult fiction awards. His forthcoming book, The Singularity Is Nearer, will be released June 25, 2024. He is a Principal Researcher and AI Visionary at Google.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 123 reviews
June 30, 2024
Kurzweil is no longer generating any ideas. Repetitive rehashings of thoughts beaten to death. His original ‘The Singularity is Near’ is still a classic banger and obligatory reading (to be in the present and understand what is going on right now - the only reasonable position is to be a singularitarian, imho 😉), yet this should’ve just been an addition chapter to a new edition of that book.
I’m afraid he won’t make it to the singularity himself though, judging by the fact that his mind seems to have died, symbolically, that he is in the downturn of life. His soul does not generate, it clings.
Joking aside, unless the law of accelerating returns is integrated into your worldview you very likely have no idea what is going on and your opinions should be automatically disregarded and ignored.
I’m afraid he won’t make it to the singularity himself though, judging by the fact that his mind seems to have died, symbolically, that he is in the downturn of life. His soul does not generate, it clings.
Joking aside, unless the law of accelerating returns is integrated into your worldview you very likely have no idea what is going on and your opinions should be automatically disregarded and ignored.
July 4, 2024
If you want to know the future, read Ray Kurzweil’s book. I appreciate his optimistic view and the way he supports his theories with historical trends and data references. I am generally hopeful about the immense impacts of humanity merging with AI in the next 5-10 years, but also would have liked the book to give more consideration for the significant psychological and societal impacts this will bring. The author is a technologist so I didn’t really expect much discussion of those aspects of the emerging epoch we will experience in our lifetime. What an amazing time to be alive!
I would have also liked to see more detail on reclamation and recycling advances since it’s my belief that once we have unlimited access to energy, 3D printing, and molecular level reclamation, money will go away and people will live for new pursuits beyond basic needs and wants. The author covers the future of abundant energy and the path of 3D printing in manufacturing, housing, and healthcare, but I think there is much to explore on technologies that can break down material waste to reclaim constituent elements. I see that piece as a leg in the triangle that will bring socioeconomic equality to every person. Reclamation seems to be further behind other technologies, most likely due to the poor cost benefit of doing this currently.
I’d also be interested in hearing more about the clear parallel path genetic engineering via CRISPR is now taking in the course of our evolution, especially with assistance from AI. As we learn which genes drive which diseases, capabilities, and behaviors, humanity will control its own evolution. This profound change of once evolving from natural genetic mutations to now having AI project billions of genetic permutations will allow humanity to adopt its own path. This ability is going to have enormous physiological, moral, and societal impacts. Who will we become? What will humanity look like?
I recommend this book to anyone interested in these topics.
I would have also liked to see more detail on reclamation and recycling advances since it’s my belief that once we have unlimited access to energy, 3D printing, and molecular level reclamation, money will go away and people will live for new pursuits beyond basic needs and wants. The author covers the future of abundant energy and the path of 3D printing in manufacturing, housing, and healthcare, but I think there is much to explore on technologies that can break down material waste to reclaim constituent elements. I see that piece as a leg in the triangle that will bring socioeconomic equality to every person. Reclamation seems to be further behind other technologies, most likely due to the poor cost benefit of doing this currently.
I’d also be interested in hearing more about the clear parallel path genetic engineering via CRISPR is now taking in the course of our evolution, especially with assistance from AI. As we learn which genes drive which diseases, capabilities, and behaviors, humanity will control its own evolution. This profound change of once evolving from natural genetic mutations to now having AI project billions of genetic permutations will allow humanity to adopt its own path. This ability is going to have enormous physiological, moral, and societal impacts. Who will we become? What will humanity look like?
I recommend this book to anyone interested in these topics.
Read
November 8, 2020I read a preprint, but withholding my review and rating until the book's published.
Want to read
December 11, 2023Will this book be published in a post-AGI world? I have the sense it is already too late for informing us about the upcoming urgency.
August 26, 2024
A lot of techno-utopian idealism and speculation, with very little attention to potential downsides. Overall not nearly as interesting as I had hoped, and much of it was information people will already be acquainted with if they've been following recent trends in AI, etc.
July 11, 2024
I haven't spent a whole lot of time with the book because I expected something actually insightful but it's just the general futurism drivel you can find everywhere nowadays.
It keeps on going on random tangents about the history of the universe and biology and evolution but never goes into any of it beyond a basic popscience level.
There is lots of vague speculation about how neural networks and brains are similar and why they will eventually be fused in some way, with nanobots of course.
I have skimmed through the entire thing and regardless of where I start it's some tired futurism clichée. Either its about how progress has beein accelerating, how nano-technology will change everything, how computers are getting faster, or how GPT4 is solving language and therefore is the holy grail of intelligence. There are probably lots of others in here but those are the ones that came to mind spontanously. I should count the number of time the word "nano" appears in here. It's probably hilarious but I only have the audiobook.
I was recommended this book because I expressed views that we need to expand the human brain in some way because there is no way of developing agentic AI beyond our own inteligence safely, which necessarily implies that we need to be able to keep up somehow, therefore increasing our own capabilities however possible.
So I think I might actually agree with some of the conclusions this book comes to but it would take me 8 hours of listening to AI futurism buzzwords to get there.
I personally think most people including this author tend to vastly overestimate the speed at which technological progress will happen in terms of the whole singularity concept. The speed of progress is accelerating and overall has been accelerating for a long time but I don't think we are anywhere near the point where we will experience any sort of exponential runaway effect. The real world just doesn't work that way. Doing things in the real world take a long time and I don't think there are any indicators that this will change. Building a big building takes exactly as long as it did 50 years ago. It might (arguably) be a better building nowadays, but its not going to be built faster. I think this is a similar logical fallacy as the famous "9 women producing a child in one month".
Maybe this book is written in this obnoxiously wise and clever way because that is what sells and that is the audience it is meant for. Maybe, after it gets all this preamble of explaining and motivating this all out of the way, it eventually gets to some actually interesting points about how societies and governments can deal with the pretty drastic changes that are going to happen fairly soon with and without a technological singularity. But I just don't have the patience to look for this.
How do you build a society around a world in which anyone can create biological weapons in their kitchen for example. I really believe these problems might be solvable but I couldn't find anything actionable in here. It's just talking about how medicine will be amazing in the future.
The same goes for many other of the points it makes. It all rings hollow to me.
If this book was written 20 years ago I would be really impressed but its not. Most of the insights I could find in this book are more or less just common knowledge nowadays.
This book is kind of like string theory. It paints a pretty picture but it doesn't actually provide anything useful or actionable.
It reads like just the world-building of a sci-fi book without the actual story.
I guess you could read it as an optimistic and non-technical introduction into the AI future, whenever it will happen, and I am the wrong audience entirely.
It keeps on going on random tangents about the history of the universe and biology and evolution but never goes into any of it beyond a basic popscience level.
There is lots of vague speculation about how neural networks and brains are similar and why they will eventually be fused in some way, with nanobots of course.
I have skimmed through the entire thing and regardless of where I start it's some tired futurism clichée. Either its about how progress has beein accelerating, how nano-technology will change everything, how computers are getting faster, or how GPT4 is solving language and therefore is the holy grail of intelligence. There are probably lots of others in here but those are the ones that came to mind spontanously. I should count the number of time the word "nano" appears in here. It's probably hilarious but I only have the audiobook.
I was recommended this book because I expressed views that we need to expand the human brain in some way because there is no way of developing agentic AI beyond our own inteligence safely, which necessarily implies that we need to be able to keep up somehow, therefore increasing our own capabilities however possible.
So I think I might actually agree with some of the conclusions this book comes to but it would take me 8 hours of listening to AI futurism buzzwords to get there.
I personally think most people including this author tend to vastly overestimate the speed at which technological progress will happen in terms of the whole singularity concept. The speed of progress is accelerating and overall has been accelerating for a long time but I don't think we are anywhere near the point where we will experience any sort of exponential runaway effect. The real world just doesn't work that way. Doing things in the real world take a long time and I don't think there are any indicators that this will change. Building a big building takes exactly as long as it did 50 years ago. It might (arguably) be a better building nowadays, but its not going to be built faster. I think this is a similar logical fallacy as the famous "9 women producing a child in one month".
Maybe this book is written in this obnoxiously wise and clever way because that is what sells and that is the audience it is meant for. Maybe, after it gets all this preamble of explaining and motivating this all out of the way, it eventually gets to some actually interesting points about how societies and governments can deal with the pretty drastic changes that are going to happen fairly soon with and without a technological singularity. But I just don't have the patience to look for this.
How do you build a society around a world in which anyone can create biological weapons in their kitchen for example. I really believe these problems might be solvable but I couldn't find anything actionable in here. It's just talking about how medicine will be amazing in the future.
The same goes for many other of the points it makes. It all rings hollow to me.
If this book was written 20 years ago I would be really impressed but its not. Most of the insights I could find in this book are more or less just common knowledge nowadays.
This book is kind of like string theory. It paints a pretty picture but it doesn't actually provide anything useful or actionable.
It reads like just the world-building of a sci-fi book without the actual story.
I guess you could read it as an optimistic and non-technical introduction into the AI future, whenever it will happen, and I am the wrong audience entirely.
August 5, 2024
An Optimistic View of the Future of AI.
Buried under a blizzard of statistics and projections, Kurzweil makes a powerful case for a time in the very near Future where The Human Race will Merge with AI. He sees the nexus of lower costs and the speed of AI Research and Development issuing the Dawn of an Age of Aquarius where we have access to all the Knowledge in the Universe that impacts the whole Spectrum of Technology from Energy, Culture, Fashion, Construction, etc.
There are some flies in the ointment, though, lots of “ifs”!
So, while I’d love to join him on his Rainbow Bridge, i’ve seen too many roadblocks erected by Luddites in the past.
If the Culture allows us to do this, everything would be great. Well, we’ll see. The early 2030’s is fast approaching. If we do what is good for us all the pieces fall into line. How often do we do what is good for us?!
Still a very inspiring read amid all the Doom and Gloom aboutthe threat of AI. Four Stars. ****
Buried under a blizzard of statistics and projections, Kurzweil makes a powerful case for a time in the very near Future where The Human Race will Merge with AI. He sees the nexus of lower costs and the speed of AI Research and Development issuing the Dawn of an Age of Aquarius where we have access to all the Knowledge in the Universe that impacts the whole Spectrum of Technology from Energy, Culture, Fashion, Construction, etc.
There are some flies in the ointment, though, lots of “ifs”!
So, while I’d love to join him on his Rainbow Bridge, i’ve seen too many roadblocks erected by Luddites in the past.
If the Culture allows us to do this, everything would be great. Well, we’ll see. The early 2030’s is fast approaching. If we do what is good for us all the pieces fall into line. How often do we do what is good for us?!
Still a very inspiring read amid all the Doom and Gloom aboutthe threat of AI. Four Stars. ****
August 13, 2024
Remember those old memes? they were like:
- Step 1
- Step 2
- ???
- Profit
They remind me of Kurweil's recipe for the majority of this book, along these lines:
- step 1: relatively unbiased summary of the history of a particular technology.
- step 2: something something, law of accelerating returns / feedback loop (optional)
- step 3: concrete prediction of what that technology will be like in the future, with more or less concrete date
After reading this book, I don't trust Kurzweil's predictions much outside of information technologies like AI, and even there I don't trust him to predict the major consequences of trends. Near-free food in the coming years from incredibly energy-intensive vertical agriculture, really? Useful and safe enough AI systems and neural interfaces that will enable the seamless merging of human minds with AI, how exactly? And don't get me started on all those times nanorobots came out of seemingly nowhere. I was hoping for a fairly substantiated explanation for his technological predictions but did not find it for most in this book.
For those like me interested in forecasting accuracy, check out this link below claiming that more than half of his previous predictions for the year 2019 were outright wrong and only one out of five or ten was right. On the other hand, some claim that he mostly makes the right predictions but is just too optimistic about the rate at which they will come true. I'll let you be the judge of that.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NcGBm...
I also got the impression that he did not take the existential risks of AI and other emerging technologies anywhere near as seriously as he should have.
Don't get me wrong, part of this book contains an important narrative about how emerging technologies will continue their trend of becoming an even bigger determinant of our times (probably in ways and degrees most people don't realize). I think this idea is correct in essence, and fundamental for those who want any hope of understanding the coming decades (hence the 3 stars), but the framing isn't working for me.
- Step 1
- Step 2
- ???
- Profit
They remind me of Kurweil's recipe for the majority of this book, along these lines:
- step 1: relatively unbiased summary of the history of a particular technology.
- step 2: something something, law of accelerating returns / feedback loop (optional)
- step 3: concrete prediction of what that technology will be like in the future, with more or less concrete date
After reading this book, I don't trust Kurzweil's predictions much outside of information technologies like AI, and even there I don't trust him to predict the major consequences of trends. Near-free food in the coming years from incredibly energy-intensive vertical agriculture, really? Useful and safe enough AI systems and neural interfaces that will enable the seamless merging of human minds with AI, how exactly? And don't get me started on all those times nanorobots came out of seemingly nowhere. I was hoping for a fairly substantiated explanation for his technological predictions but did not find it for most in this book.
For those like me interested in forecasting accuracy, check out this link below claiming that more than half of his previous predictions for the year 2019 were outright wrong and only one out of five or ten was right. On the other hand, some claim that he mostly makes the right predictions but is just too optimistic about the rate at which they will come true. I'll let you be the judge of that.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NcGBm...
I also got the impression that he did not take the existential risks of AI and other emerging technologies anywhere near as seriously as he should have.
Don't get me wrong, part of this book contains an important narrative about how emerging technologies will continue their trend of becoming an even bigger determinant of our times (probably in ways and degrees most people don't realize). I think this idea is correct in essence, and fundamental for those who want any hope of understanding the coming decades (hence the 3 stars), but the framing isn't working for me.
July 8, 2024
Read this because I have a (morbid) fascination with tech bros and “tescrealists” and Kurzweil is kind of a god among them. He’s a nut obsessed with living forever, but you can’t deny he’s got a brain and ideas and has actually contributed to the progress of technology, which is more than you can say for most of the crowd.
Anyway, sadly for Kurz this is a super tech bro-y book. He name drops Bitcoin and Bojack Horseman among other predictable signals to a certain subculture that tends to buy into this ideology but that has NOTHING to do with the Singularity. It’s cringe.
He also makes this weird claim that it’s okay that people don’t make as much money now (and if they get automated out of jobs) because you get more bang for your buck nowadays, like sure computers are a little more expensive but they do so much more so it’s okay!! Oh yeah and because people enjoy doing things that are free (he says scrolling on tiktok lol) they don’t need more money anyway and we should rethink what GDP even means. Please Kurz.
When he does actually get into the stuff about singularity, it’s 2/3 of the way through the book and makes a huge jump off from the base he was attempting to build with all that bulk. He talks about the beginning of the universe, brain biology, and the evolution of technology and the internet in basic high-school or pop/sci level review. And somehow that’s a good enough foundation for him to promise that we WILL have augmented reality beamed into our retinas, omniscient AI assistants listening and responding to our every needs, nanobots swimming in our bodies to stop aging oh yeah and SUPERHUMAN machine intelligence all in the 2030s. Ok, Kurz!!!!
I tend to love sci-fi, especially hard sci-fi and vintage ephemera that attempts to predict the future (e.g., flying cars, geodesic domes, colonizing the moon) so I tried to enjoy this book as just more of that because, to an extent, it is. But the language used is this is not science fiction it’s not “we could have this!” it’s so confident: “we WILL have this” and “it WILL happen like this.” And knowing this is holy gospel to people with actual power and money makes it not funny at all. At least until the 2030s when we can all look back on it and laugh or think “god if only.”
Anyway, sadly for Kurz this is a super tech bro-y book. He name drops Bitcoin and Bojack Horseman among other predictable signals to a certain subculture that tends to buy into this ideology but that has NOTHING to do with the Singularity. It’s cringe.
He also makes this weird claim that it’s okay that people don’t make as much money now (and if they get automated out of jobs) because you get more bang for your buck nowadays, like sure computers are a little more expensive but they do so much more so it’s okay!! Oh yeah and because people enjoy doing things that are free (he says scrolling on tiktok lol) they don’t need more money anyway and we should rethink what GDP even means. Please Kurz.
When he does actually get into the stuff about singularity, it’s 2/3 of the way through the book and makes a huge jump off from the base he was attempting to build with all that bulk. He talks about the beginning of the universe, brain biology, and the evolution of technology and the internet in basic high-school or pop/sci level review. And somehow that’s a good enough foundation for him to promise that we WILL have augmented reality beamed into our retinas, omniscient AI assistants listening and responding to our every needs, nanobots swimming in our bodies to stop aging oh yeah and SUPERHUMAN machine intelligence all in the 2030s. Ok, Kurz!!!!
I tend to love sci-fi, especially hard sci-fi and vintage ephemera that attempts to predict the future (e.g., flying cars, geodesic domes, colonizing the moon) so I tried to enjoy this book as just more of that because, to an extent, it is. But the language used is this is not science fiction it’s not “we could have this!” it’s so confident: “we WILL have this” and “it WILL happen like this.” And knowing this is holy gospel to people with actual power and money makes it not funny at all. At least until the 2030s when we can all look back on it and laugh or think “god if only.”
August 9, 2024
I quite enjoyed this mostly-mindblowing, but occasionally not-quite-there book. It's eye-opening, hopeful, enlightening, and terrifying.
Kurzweil covers the same ground as he did in THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR, but updates it with the progress we've made in the twenty years since.
While I find much of what he talks about absolutely fascinating and hopeful, I do fear that, while he has his finger on the pulse of the emerging technology of AI and the advancements it will bring, he woefully underestimates the human factor, either from the abject fear that many have against AI, but also from those in control (I'm thinking CEOs, governing regulatory bodies, as well as boneheaded politicians who often can't get their head out of a particular hole on their body, or a particular book of holy writ), who will be very good at throwing a cavalcade of wrenches into the works.
Still, overall, a really good read.
Kurzweil covers the same ground as he did in THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR, but updates it with the progress we've made in the twenty years since.
While I find much of what he talks about absolutely fascinating and hopeful, I do fear that, while he has his finger on the pulse of the emerging technology of AI and the advancements it will bring, he woefully underestimates the human factor, either from the abject fear that many have against AI, but also from those in control (I'm thinking CEOs, governing regulatory bodies, as well as boneheaded politicians who often can't get their head out of a particular hole on their body, or a particular book of holy writ), who will be very good at throwing a cavalcade of wrenches into the works.
Still, overall, a really good read.
July 26, 2024
Not the best. The Singularity is Near was much better. This one... seems like he just wanted to make another book. Seems to just keep going on about things that aren't really about AI or the singularity, but just looking at trends which are interesting but all things I've heard about long before, usually from Pinker but sometimes from other people, and often more than once.
Ray Kurzweil has some blind spots, largely about AI safety. He has a utopian vision of the future which is fine but ... connect the dots a bit more. He has his idea of how we get there but I've heard those before. All right here's the math on simulating a brain, okay. Some non trivial problems in getting there! Seems convinced we'll merge with tech rather than be superseded by it. That's one possibility. Why discount the others?
Keeps talking about "The Cloud" like that's how we augment our minds by connecting to cloud computing. Why keep saying "The Cloud"? Did you read some brochure? I mean yeah most modern computing is cloud computing but really just just means offloading the extensions of our mind to some external computing device. Cloud is so much the computing thing of the minute. Do I want to trust my mind to some cloud hosted computer? Not convinced!
A bit disappointed. I do hope he's right though. His timelines seem somewhat reasonable.
Ray Kurzweil has some blind spots, largely about AI safety. He has a utopian vision of the future which is fine but ... connect the dots a bit more. He has his idea of how we get there but I've heard those before. All right here's the math on simulating a brain, okay. Some non trivial problems in getting there! Seems convinced we'll merge with tech rather than be superseded by it. That's one possibility. Why discount the others?
Keeps talking about "The Cloud" like that's how we augment our minds by connecting to cloud computing. Why keep saying "The Cloud"? Did you read some brochure? I mean yeah most modern computing is cloud computing but really just just means offloading the extensions of our mind to some external computing device. Cloud is so much the computing thing of the minute. Do I want to trust my mind to some cloud hosted computer? Not convinced!
A bit disappointed. I do hope he's right though. His timelines seem somewhat reasonable.
August 14, 2024
This book is interesting, incredibly well sourced, and the track record of the author at predicting technological advancement is excellent. That is why I am giving it 2 stars versus 1. However, I just didn’t enjoy how often it rehashes topics from previous books he has written, how it doesn’t build on theories and predictions proposed but just reiterates them. It’s really repetitive, and reframes the same handful of predictions in numerous ways. In 10-15 years you’ll be able to say things came true from this book because every chapter is a different hedge on the same 3-4 predictions. Try and find an interview with the author, or a summary of this book and save yourself the time it takes to read this book.
September 12, 2024
If you have read "The Singularity is Near", you don't need to read this follow-up. Part of this new book is a repeat of both the earlier book and "How To Create a Mind", the rest is a cursory discussion of new trends in AI and neuroscience. You can probably find a better place to read about these topics in more detail. Frankly, the book felt like a very drawn out way of saying "I told you so".
If you haven't read "The Singularity is Near" yet, then go ahead and read it, but skip this one. You don't need to read this follow-up.
If you haven't read "The Singularity is Near" yet, then go ahead and read it, but skip this one. You don't need to read this follow-up.
August 16, 2024
300 pages of tech bro ai worship that tries to convince us with a litany of cherry picked statistics, poor philosophizing, and borderline offensive rhetoric that what we need is more tech integration in our lives and that through AI, all our worldly and spiritual problems will be solved. Honestly really disappointed because I was hoping for a nuanced, careful account of what the future might hold and instead I got big tech propaganda :(
September 3, 2024
Both optimistic and quite frightening, Kurzweil once again posits possible scenarios of how technology will impact our lives. Readable, as always, I enjoyed reading this. Personally, I think the author is overly optimistic about the impact of AI on society - but I hope he is correct. Been reading this guy for 30 years and have learned a lot!
July 4, 2024
I was waiting for this book with high expectations, after having read all previous books from Kurzweil.
But I was really disappointed: to be honest, I didn’t find any new valuable information compared with The Singularity is near of 2005.
For the ones looking to approach Kurzweil, I still believe that The Singularity is near remains the best book to read!
But I was really disappointed: to be honest, I didn’t find any new valuable information compared with The Singularity is near of 2005.
For the ones looking to approach Kurzweil, I still believe that The Singularity is near remains the best book to read!
August 28, 2024
Nu, tad tā - kad man pirms 5 gadiem tika jautāts, vai es savās smadzenēs liktu kaut kādus čipus, kas man dotu iespēju izmantot, piem., internetā pieejamo informāciju - droši un pārliecinoši teicu "nē".
Tagad - es droši un pārliecinoši varu teikt, ka manas dzīves laikā manā galvā pilnīgi noteikti būs kāds lērums nano-botu, kas veiks dažādus darbiņus. Tā tie laiki un uzskati mainās. Interesanti laiki. Ir un būs.
Tagad - es droši un pārliecinoši varu teikt, ka manas dzīves laikā manā galvā pilnīgi noteikti būs kāds lērums nano-botu, kas veiks dažādus darbiņus. Tā tie laiki un uzskati mainās. Interesanti laiki. Ir un būs.
September 3, 2024
Really good read about the future of AI, its potential applications, and how it could change our way of living, as seen from the perspective of an optimistic person.
August 11, 2024
He made a more nuanced singularity argument than I remember from the earlier book. I liked that he explored the limits of what is theoretically possible in many fields.
July 13, 2024
Does not significantly improve on the original. It's basically a big I told you so with some updated charts.
August 14, 2024
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July 8, 2024
"The Singularity is Nearer" by Ray Kurzweil stands as a monumental synthesis of his previous works, potentially his final book unless he titles his next one "The Singularity is Here" once the event actually occurs. This book is an extraordinary introduction and comprehensive guide covering an extensive range of topics, including philosophy, evolution, cybernetics, consciousness, AI, free will, transhumanism, and economics. Kurzweil's engaging writing style makes complex subjects accessible, making this a reference book worth revisiting.
Kurzweil meticulously builds his thesis, demonstrating how his predictions since 1990 have consistently come true and, more importantly, why they have. His primary assertion is that the decreasing costs of informational technologies lead to further reductions in these costs, making it's development an unstopable trend that permeates on everything in our lives. He elucidates the current state of affairs, the historical developments that brought us here, and future projections, addressing potential challenges and plausible solutions along the way.
The book also delves into numerous scientific advancements and innovations that, while promising today, hold significant potential for transforming our future, from medicine to nanotechnology. Kurzweil provides detailed explanations of these developments, their capabilities, and their likely impact on our daily lives, along with the possible problems and solutions associated with them.
Kurzweil meticulously builds his thesis, demonstrating how his predictions since 1990 have consistently come true and, more importantly, why they have. His primary assertion is that the decreasing costs of informational technologies lead to further reductions in these costs, making it's development an unstopable trend that permeates on everything in our lives. He elucidates the current state of affairs, the historical developments that brought us here, and future projections, addressing potential challenges and plausible solutions along the way.
The book also delves into numerous scientific advancements and innovations that, while promising today, hold significant potential for transforming our future, from medicine to nanotechnology. Kurzweil provides detailed explanations of these developments, their capabilities, and their likely impact on our daily lives, along with the possible problems and solutions associated with them.
September 2, 2024
Ray Kurzweil’s "The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI" explores the exponential technological growth we are currently experiencing, setting the stage for a future where humanity and artificial intelligence (AI) will become inextricably linked. Building on his previous work, "The Singularity Is Near" (2005), Kurzweil outlines how rapid advancements in AI, nanotechnology, and other digital innovations are pushing us toward a Singularity—a moment in time when technological change becomes uncontrollable, leading to unforeseeable transformations in human civilization.
Kurzweil introduces the concept of the “law of accelerating returns,” which suggests that information technologies grow exponentially cheaper and more powerful over time. Since 2005, computing power per dollar has increased by over 11,200 times, and the cost of sequencing a human genome has plummeted by 99.997 percent. These trends are not anomalies but rather evidence of the accelerating pace of technological development. As we move toward what Kurzweil calls the “sharply steepening part of the exponential curve,” the speed of change is set to increase even further.
At the heart of Kurzweil’s vision is the idea of the Singularity, a transformative event where technological growth becomes uncontrollable and leads to profound changes in society. The foundation for this transformation lies in the development of intelligent machines. From the basic computers of the 1950s to the sophisticated AI systems of today, the journey toward machine intelligence has been marked by breakthroughs and challenges. Early AI research oscillated between two approaches: the symbolic approach, which used explicit rules and logic, and the connectionist approach, inspired by the human brain's neural networks.
While the symbolic approach showed promise in narrow domains, it failed to handle the complexities of the real world. The connectionist approach, on the other hand, laid the groundwork for modern deep learning techniques. By the 2010s, deep learning had revolutionized AI, leading to systems capable of pattern recognition, such as Google’s AlphaGo and OpenAI’s GPT-3. However, even as AI systems display remarkable capabilities, they still lack essential elements of human cognition, such as contextual memory and common sense reasoning. Kurzweil predicts that artificial general intelligence (AGI), with human-like cognitive flexibility, will emerge by 2029, bringing us closer to the Singularity.
The Singularity, which Kurzweil forecasts for around 2045, will be characterized by the convergence of biological and artificial intelligence. This merger, facilitated by brain-computer interfaces, will allow humans to augment their cognitive abilities, potentially leading to superintelligent AI systems. These systems could surpass human intelligence by orders of magnitude, creating a world where the line between human and machine blurs. The potential for AI to enhance human capabilities raises profound ethical questions about the future of humanity and whether superintelligent AI will act in our best interests.
Nanotechnology plays a crucial role in Kurzweil’s vision of the future. By manipulating matter at the atomic level, nanotechnology could revolutionize medicine and technology, enabling us to overcome biological limitations. Nanobots could be used to repair cellular damage, eradicate diseases, and even extend lifespans. These advances would fundamentally alter our understanding of health and aging, allowing us to live longer, healthier lives. In addition, molecular assemblers could manufacture physical objects with precision, reducing the cost of goods and reshaping society by addressing issues of scarcity.
Kurzweil envisions a world where nanobots not only heal our bodies but also transform our brains, enabling brain-computer interfaces that expand our cognitive capabilities. This future could involve direct neural control of machines and access to vast knowledge networks, pushing the boundaries of what it means to be human. The implications of such developments are profound: as we redesign our bodies and minds, we will confront questions about identity, consciousness, and what it means to exist in a post-human world.
The book also addresses the impact of AI and automation on the future of work. Historically, technological progress has displaced certain jobs while creating new opportunities. However, the current wave of AI and robotics is different in that it threatens to automate a wide range of cognitive tasks, from driving to complex problem-solving. Kurzweil predicts that by the 2030s, AI will surpass human capabilities in most cognitive domains, fundamentally altering the workforce. Instead of becoming obsolete, humans will likely augment their abilities through AI integration, leading to a new era of human-AI symbiosis in the workplace.
This shift will necessitate a radical transformation of education systems, focusing on adaptability, creativity, and collaboration with AI. Lifelong learning will become essential as technological advancements continue to accelerate. Moreover, the social safety net will need to evolve to support individuals whose jobs are displaced by automation. Universal basic income (UBI) could become a reality in developed countries by the early 2030s, providing a comfortable standard of living in a world where traditional work may no longer be the primary source of income or identity.
Kurzweil’s vision of the future is one of abundance, where exponential progress in AI, robotics, and nanotechnology dramatically reduces the cost of goods and services. In this future, basic needs such as food, energy, and housing could be met for everyone, shifting humanity’s focus toward higher pursuits like scientific exploration, artistic expression, and philosophical inquiry. However, the transition to this future will not be without challenges. Smart policies will be necessary to ensure that technological progress benefits all of humanity, preventing the exacerbation of inequality and ensuring that the deflationary effects of AI reach essential services like healthcare and education.
Ultimately, Kurzweil’s book highlights the potential for unprecedented change driven by AI, nanotechnology, and other exponential technologies. These advancements promise to transform medicine, work, and the very nature of human capabilities. However, the journey to the Singularity will require careful navigation of ethical, social, and technological challenges. If Kurzweil’s predictions hold true, the next few decades will be the most transformative in human history, leading to a future that is difficult to imagine but full of potential.
Kurzweil introduces the concept of the “law of accelerating returns,” which suggests that information technologies grow exponentially cheaper and more powerful over time. Since 2005, computing power per dollar has increased by over 11,200 times, and the cost of sequencing a human genome has plummeted by 99.997 percent. These trends are not anomalies but rather evidence of the accelerating pace of technological development. As we move toward what Kurzweil calls the “sharply steepening part of the exponential curve,” the speed of change is set to increase even further.
At the heart of Kurzweil’s vision is the idea of the Singularity, a transformative event where technological growth becomes uncontrollable and leads to profound changes in society. The foundation for this transformation lies in the development of intelligent machines. From the basic computers of the 1950s to the sophisticated AI systems of today, the journey toward machine intelligence has been marked by breakthroughs and challenges. Early AI research oscillated between two approaches: the symbolic approach, which used explicit rules and logic, and the connectionist approach, inspired by the human brain's neural networks.
While the symbolic approach showed promise in narrow domains, it failed to handle the complexities of the real world. The connectionist approach, on the other hand, laid the groundwork for modern deep learning techniques. By the 2010s, deep learning had revolutionized AI, leading to systems capable of pattern recognition, such as Google’s AlphaGo and OpenAI’s GPT-3. However, even as AI systems display remarkable capabilities, they still lack essential elements of human cognition, such as contextual memory and common sense reasoning. Kurzweil predicts that artificial general intelligence (AGI), with human-like cognitive flexibility, will emerge by 2029, bringing us closer to the Singularity.
The Singularity, which Kurzweil forecasts for around 2045, will be characterized by the convergence of biological and artificial intelligence. This merger, facilitated by brain-computer interfaces, will allow humans to augment their cognitive abilities, potentially leading to superintelligent AI systems. These systems could surpass human intelligence by orders of magnitude, creating a world where the line between human and machine blurs. The potential for AI to enhance human capabilities raises profound ethical questions about the future of humanity and whether superintelligent AI will act in our best interests.
Nanotechnology plays a crucial role in Kurzweil’s vision of the future. By manipulating matter at the atomic level, nanotechnology could revolutionize medicine and technology, enabling us to overcome biological limitations. Nanobots could be used to repair cellular damage, eradicate diseases, and even extend lifespans. These advances would fundamentally alter our understanding of health and aging, allowing us to live longer, healthier lives. In addition, molecular assemblers could manufacture physical objects with precision, reducing the cost of goods and reshaping society by addressing issues of scarcity.
Kurzweil envisions a world where nanobots not only heal our bodies but also transform our brains, enabling brain-computer interfaces that expand our cognitive capabilities. This future could involve direct neural control of machines and access to vast knowledge networks, pushing the boundaries of what it means to be human. The implications of such developments are profound: as we redesign our bodies and minds, we will confront questions about identity, consciousness, and what it means to exist in a post-human world.
The book also addresses the impact of AI and automation on the future of work. Historically, technological progress has displaced certain jobs while creating new opportunities. However, the current wave of AI and robotics is different in that it threatens to automate a wide range of cognitive tasks, from driving to complex problem-solving. Kurzweil predicts that by the 2030s, AI will surpass human capabilities in most cognitive domains, fundamentally altering the workforce. Instead of becoming obsolete, humans will likely augment their abilities through AI integration, leading to a new era of human-AI symbiosis in the workplace.
This shift will necessitate a radical transformation of education systems, focusing on adaptability, creativity, and collaboration with AI. Lifelong learning will become essential as technological advancements continue to accelerate. Moreover, the social safety net will need to evolve to support individuals whose jobs are displaced by automation. Universal basic income (UBI) could become a reality in developed countries by the early 2030s, providing a comfortable standard of living in a world where traditional work may no longer be the primary source of income or identity.
Kurzweil’s vision of the future is one of abundance, where exponential progress in AI, robotics, and nanotechnology dramatically reduces the cost of goods and services. In this future, basic needs such as food, energy, and housing could be met for everyone, shifting humanity’s focus toward higher pursuits like scientific exploration, artistic expression, and philosophical inquiry. However, the transition to this future will not be without challenges. Smart policies will be necessary to ensure that technological progress benefits all of humanity, preventing the exacerbation of inequality and ensuring that the deflationary effects of AI reach essential services like healthcare and education.
Ultimately, Kurzweil’s book highlights the potential for unprecedented change driven by AI, nanotechnology, and other exponential technologies. These advancements promise to transform medicine, work, and the very nature of human capabilities. However, the journey to the Singularity will require careful navigation of ethical, social, and technological challenges. If Kurzweil’s predictions hold true, the next few decades will be the most transformative in human history, leading to a future that is difficult to imagine but full of potential.
July 12, 2024
Low value for price, charts hardly updated, and no predictions were changed.
The Good: Kurzweil quickly gets to the core issues on concepts, explaining them clearly. He also expertly guides you through a history of AI, cutting through a ton of noise and fluff that you would get online. He brings up and explains many philosophical questions about the mind and how a mind augmented by a computer or even a computer taking over the functions of a mind, if done in a certain way, could be considered the same mind, the same consciousness, and hence the same person. It was quite compelling. Compared to "The Singularity is Near", the book is more concise and to the point, with the main prose (not the notes or index) being about 300 pages vs. almost 500 for his 2005 work. And the font and spacing take up more room, so I'd estimate the work in comparable terms might be closer to 200-250 pages vs. the older 500. The older book did go off on too many rabbit trails and this one less so.
The Bad: I paid about $28 for this hardcover book a day or so after it was released (cover price is $35). The price is currently $23.33 about 16 days after release. I'd hope you could pay $10 or grab it used for $5. My estimate is that the most important new points of the book could have been made in a single article or a short series of articles. I do not think this should have been a new book. I suspect the author and publisher know this, sadly. I've been waiting for many years for this book, and it was a disappointment. Most of the first 3 chapters (the first was very short) were enlightening, but then it went downhill. My biggest gripe is that it has almost no updated charts from the 2005 work. Kurzweil's predictions are literally predicated on the charts from his 2005 work, so he should have at least updated the charts so that we could see in what cases the trends have continued unabated, accelerated, or decelerated. The 2005 book had charts on the cost of tons of components of computing such as RAM, transistors per chip, processor clock speed, and the power of leading supercomputers. This new book only updates the computer chart on calculations per second per constant dollar for the best price per performance chip. And that chart doesn't even include the old trendline. I would have liked to see all of the old charts with all of the old plot points and the old trendline, and overlaid on top of that all of the new plots and a potentially new trendline, all differentiated so that we could see whether these trends have continued over the past 10 years. I would guess some have and some haven't, and that's ok, it doesn't necessarily change the predictions as long as some of the main charts are still ok. I found myself checking old concepts in the 2005 book since they were referenced in this new book but not explained again well enough, and in some cases they could have just reprinted an old chart/diagram or a few of them but they didn't. There was only one reprint of a fairly crude drawing that was slightly modified, unfortunately. As far as I can tell, not one of his predictive dates was changed in this new version of the book. I like the consistency, but in general I think the title of the book is misleading as it was not nearly the follow-up I was expecting. More like an additional few essays, as I mentioned.
The Ugly: The book makes a point about homicide rates in the United States and around the world. He says homicides are going down. But, he doesn't account for the hundreds of thousands of homicides each year in the United States (and more around the world) from the dismemberment and other murder of unborn babies through abortion each year. With these included the homicide rate is around 200 per 100,000, not around 7 per 100,000 as he proclaims. This means the U.S. has a homicide rate about twice as prevalent as one he references from about 500 years ago in one city in Europe. Very disappointing that he would not even make mention of this consideration that shows that murder has in fact increased a lot in the United States. When considering abortion, the world has arguably gotten much worse, on average, for most people around the world over the past 50 to 100 years, considering all of the murder we have committed or permitted. He needs to own up to that, and we need to do what we can to fight against it.
The Good: Kurzweil quickly gets to the core issues on concepts, explaining them clearly. He also expertly guides you through a history of AI, cutting through a ton of noise and fluff that you would get online. He brings up and explains many philosophical questions about the mind and how a mind augmented by a computer or even a computer taking over the functions of a mind, if done in a certain way, could be considered the same mind, the same consciousness, and hence the same person. It was quite compelling. Compared to "The Singularity is Near", the book is more concise and to the point, with the main prose (not the notes or index) being about 300 pages vs. almost 500 for his 2005 work. And the font and spacing take up more room, so I'd estimate the work in comparable terms might be closer to 200-250 pages vs. the older 500. The older book did go off on too many rabbit trails and this one less so.
The Bad: I paid about $28 for this hardcover book a day or so after it was released (cover price is $35). The price is currently $23.33 about 16 days after release. I'd hope you could pay $10 or grab it used for $5. My estimate is that the most important new points of the book could have been made in a single article or a short series of articles. I do not think this should have been a new book. I suspect the author and publisher know this, sadly. I've been waiting for many years for this book, and it was a disappointment. Most of the first 3 chapters (the first was very short) were enlightening, but then it went downhill. My biggest gripe is that it has almost no updated charts from the 2005 work. Kurzweil's predictions are literally predicated on the charts from his 2005 work, so he should have at least updated the charts so that we could see in what cases the trends have continued unabated, accelerated, or decelerated. The 2005 book had charts on the cost of tons of components of computing such as RAM, transistors per chip, processor clock speed, and the power of leading supercomputers. This new book only updates the computer chart on calculations per second per constant dollar for the best price per performance chip. And that chart doesn't even include the old trendline. I would have liked to see all of the old charts with all of the old plot points and the old trendline, and overlaid on top of that all of the new plots and a potentially new trendline, all differentiated so that we could see whether these trends have continued over the past 10 years. I would guess some have and some haven't, and that's ok, it doesn't necessarily change the predictions as long as some of the main charts are still ok. I found myself checking old concepts in the 2005 book since they were referenced in this new book but not explained again well enough, and in some cases they could have just reprinted an old chart/diagram or a few of them but they didn't. There was only one reprint of a fairly crude drawing that was slightly modified, unfortunately. As far as I can tell, not one of his predictive dates was changed in this new version of the book. I like the consistency, but in general I think the title of the book is misleading as it was not nearly the follow-up I was expecting. More like an additional few essays, as I mentioned.
The Ugly: The book makes a point about homicide rates in the United States and around the world. He says homicides are going down. But, he doesn't account for the hundreds of thousands of homicides each year in the United States (and more around the world) from the dismemberment and other murder of unborn babies through abortion each year. With these included the homicide rate is around 200 per 100,000, not around 7 per 100,000 as he proclaims. This means the U.S. has a homicide rate about twice as prevalent as one he references from about 500 years ago in one city in Europe. Very disappointing that he would not even make mention of this consideration that shows that murder has in fact increased a lot in the United States. When considering abortion, the world has arguably gotten much worse, on average, for most people around the world over the past 50 to 100 years, considering all of the murder we have committed or permitted. He needs to own up to that, and we need to do what we can to fight against it.
August 27, 2024
“The Singularity is nearer” is Ray Kurzweil’s follow up book of 2005 -"The Singularity is near" - where he predicted that in about the year 2045, human thinking with merge with machines to give us millions of times the computing power that our biology gave us. In turn this ability will expand human intelligence and consciousness in so profound a way that it is difficult to understand.
This year, 2024, represents the “Halfway point” between the author’s predictions and that 2045 target date, so this book is a natural point to check in, review the status of progress and to determine whether we are still on track to reach this Singularity in the middle of the 21st Century.
Kurzweil’s book consists of three parts. The first section is a refresh of his thinking about the Singularity including the six stages he sees relating to intelligence. It focuses more in on Artificial Intelligent (AI) as this has recently captured the Public’s attention with the successes of Chat GPT, Gemini et.al. In this first section, the author presents the reasons why the world is on track to reach this Singularity in the time frame he predicts.
The second section, which runs from pages 111 to 234, are really a rehash of arguments about how technology is making the world a better place. Kurzweil is clearly a technologist, and this section shows his optimism. It isn’t a novel section, as seems to have been cribbed largely from other authors' work, including Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler’s “Abundance” and Steven Pinker’s “Enlightenment Now”.
This section is different from either the first and third sections and seems to have been written separately. The author seems to have added this section after writing the others section to show that technology is a force for good, and not something that is causing society harm.
In this second section there is hardly anything written about how the digital age has brought both good and bad things to us – and especially to our children who are more lonely, depressed, and not doing well in this age.
Lastly, the author returns to some of the technologies e.g., nanobots, connections within the brain and connecting the neocortex to the Cloud, that will make the Singularity possible.
I liked the book, for it reminds me to both think differently and to seek out thinkers who help me do so. I may be sceptical about humans living well to 120 – let alone 1000 years - but it’s good to challenge that scepticism.
There are also numerous concepts in the book that provoked me to think beyond what I currently imagine. For example, he quotes Hugo Ross as describing the likelihood of life forming is like “the possibility of a Boeing 747 aircraft being completely assembled as a result of a tornado striking a junk yard”. Clearly life is miraculous, and this forces us to think more about who created this amazing universe.
Also on page 252 when he states that “once we have advanced nano-manufacturing the true value of products will lie within the information they contain – not the elements that make them”. A good example of this are eBooks where the value is the software. I don’t usually think of life in the way Kurzweil does.
While his book necessarily takes the view that the Singularity is a good thing, and he argues this well, I don’t think he realises the level of disruption this will have on human beings. As mentioned above, the digital age has brought great benefits and big costs as well. I think if and/or when this Singularity occurs the costs will be much greater than Mr. Kurzweil imagines. There again that’s not his job. That's for his critics to present.
It's an interesting book, but not necessarily a great one.
This year, 2024, represents the “Halfway point” between the author’s predictions and that 2045 target date, so this book is a natural point to check in, review the status of progress and to determine whether we are still on track to reach this Singularity in the middle of the 21st Century.
Kurzweil’s book consists of three parts. The first section is a refresh of his thinking about the Singularity including the six stages he sees relating to intelligence. It focuses more in on Artificial Intelligent (AI) as this has recently captured the Public’s attention with the successes of Chat GPT, Gemini et.al. In this first section, the author presents the reasons why the world is on track to reach this Singularity in the time frame he predicts.
The second section, which runs from pages 111 to 234, are really a rehash of arguments about how technology is making the world a better place. Kurzweil is clearly a technologist, and this section shows his optimism. It isn’t a novel section, as seems to have been cribbed largely from other authors' work, including Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler’s “Abundance” and Steven Pinker’s “Enlightenment Now”.
This section is different from either the first and third sections and seems to have been written separately. The author seems to have added this section after writing the others section to show that technology is a force for good, and not something that is causing society harm.
In this second section there is hardly anything written about how the digital age has brought both good and bad things to us – and especially to our children who are more lonely, depressed, and not doing well in this age.
Lastly, the author returns to some of the technologies e.g., nanobots, connections within the brain and connecting the neocortex to the Cloud, that will make the Singularity possible.
I liked the book, for it reminds me to both think differently and to seek out thinkers who help me do so. I may be sceptical about humans living well to 120 – let alone 1000 years - but it’s good to challenge that scepticism.
There are also numerous concepts in the book that provoked me to think beyond what I currently imagine. For example, he quotes Hugo Ross as describing the likelihood of life forming is like “the possibility of a Boeing 747 aircraft being completely assembled as a result of a tornado striking a junk yard”. Clearly life is miraculous, and this forces us to think more about who created this amazing universe.
Also on page 252 when he states that “once we have advanced nano-manufacturing the true value of products will lie within the information they contain – not the elements that make them”. A good example of this are eBooks where the value is the software. I don’t usually think of life in the way Kurzweil does.
While his book necessarily takes the view that the Singularity is a good thing, and he argues this well, I don’t think he realises the level of disruption this will have on human beings. As mentioned above, the digital age has brought great benefits and big costs as well. I think if and/or when this Singularity occurs the costs will be much greater than Mr. Kurzweil imagines. There again that’s not his job. That's for his critics to present.
It's an interesting book, but not necessarily a great one.
August 25, 2024
The below is a review of the audible audio edition of this work]
A disappointing book
The reason this reviewer decided to read this book was to, basically, obtain Dr. Kurzweil’s views updated views on the human-electrical-mechanical “singularity” that he presented in his first book, “The Singularity is Near”. The reviewer wanted to see, in particular, how technology has changed, in that field, since the publication of that book as well as any new and updated forecasts that the author may posit. Unfortunately, the book, to a large degree, disappointed.
The primary reason the book the book disappointed was because it spent most of its time (more like three quarters or so, very roughly) expounding, in a techno-optimistic manner, on the advance of a variety of technologies, outside the above scope. Examples include agricultural production, energy production, environmental sustainability, etc. Most of Dr. Kurzweil’s book very much reflect what were the books of many books written in the recent past by other techno-optimists, in particular Peter Diamandis. If a reader has read Diamandis’ “Abundance: The Future is Better than you Think” and his “The Future is Faster than you Think”, he or she has already read the bulk of Dr. Kurzweil’s latest book. As a side note, like Diamandis and his fellow techno-optimist’s utopian view, Kurzweil’s book presents a very one sided and positive view of the future and the technologies discussed. There is only one chapter on the dangers also posed by the introduction of these technologies. Despite that, Kurzweil still makes an interesting case in support of the view that the technologies he discusses will be positive for humanity.
With respect to the human-electro-mechanical nexus (i.e. “singularity”), the author, when he discusses them (in the last third or quarter of the book), presents many interesting ideas and clearly discusses many of the positive benefits and how they could be achieved, technically, as well as what practical benefit they would have for humanity. This is the real “meat and potatoes” of the book. All and all a very interesting discussion and analysis. This alone makes the book worth reading. If only more of the book were dedicated to this.
This reviewer’s main criticism of the book is the same as that of the original book, one clearly remembered after reading the original book. That is, this last book, like the original, is really a book that attempts to point out that immortality (or very much like it – Kurzweil is careful to stress that we may only live to , say, 1,000 years due to accidents and non-biological hazards to life) is achievable and this would be a great thing for humanity. Dr. Kurzweil makes it sound like the evolutionary peak of humanity’s development – a virtual Valhalla on earth. In this respect Dr. Kurzweil, at least in this reviewer’s opinion, is incorrect. Alfred Adler, unlike Kurzweil, understood that immortality (or alternatively, very, very long life) would not be a benefit but would condemn humanity to stagnation by robbing it (or at least greatly slowing down) of the process of evolutionary development. with respect to the major ideas and ideologies. As Alfred Adler said “Death is really a great blessing for humanity; without it, there could be no real progress. People who lived forever would not only hamper and discourage the young, but they would themselves lack sufficient stimulus to be creative.”
A disappointing book
The reason this reviewer decided to read this book was to, basically, obtain Dr. Kurzweil’s views updated views on the human-electrical-mechanical “singularity” that he presented in his first book, “The Singularity is Near”. The reviewer wanted to see, in particular, how technology has changed, in that field, since the publication of that book as well as any new and updated forecasts that the author may posit. Unfortunately, the book, to a large degree, disappointed.
The primary reason the book the book disappointed was because it spent most of its time (more like three quarters or so, very roughly) expounding, in a techno-optimistic manner, on the advance of a variety of technologies, outside the above scope. Examples include agricultural production, energy production, environmental sustainability, etc. Most of Dr. Kurzweil’s book very much reflect what were the books of many books written in the recent past by other techno-optimists, in particular Peter Diamandis. If a reader has read Diamandis’ “Abundance: The Future is Better than you Think” and his “The Future is Faster than you Think”, he or she has already read the bulk of Dr. Kurzweil’s latest book. As a side note, like Diamandis and his fellow techno-optimist’s utopian view, Kurzweil’s book presents a very one sided and positive view of the future and the technologies discussed. There is only one chapter on the dangers also posed by the introduction of these technologies. Despite that, Kurzweil still makes an interesting case in support of the view that the technologies he discusses will be positive for humanity.
With respect to the human-electro-mechanical nexus (i.e. “singularity”), the author, when he discusses them (in the last third or quarter of the book), presents many interesting ideas and clearly discusses many of the positive benefits and how they could be achieved, technically, as well as what practical benefit they would have for humanity. This is the real “meat and potatoes” of the book. All and all a very interesting discussion and analysis. This alone makes the book worth reading. If only more of the book were dedicated to this.
This reviewer’s main criticism of the book is the same as that of the original book, one clearly remembered after reading the original book. That is, this last book, like the original, is really a book that attempts to point out that immortality (or very much like it – Kurzweil is careful to stress that we may only live to , say, 1,000 years due to accidents and non-biological hazards to life) is achievable and this would be a great thing for humanity. Dr. Kurzweil makes it sound like the evolutionary peak of humanity’s development – a virtual Valhalla on earth. In this respect Dr. Kurzweil, at least in this reviewer’s opinion, is incorrect. Alfred Adler, unlike Kurzweil, understood that immortality (or alternatively, very, very long life) would not be a benefit but would condemn humanity to stagnation by robbing it (or at least greatly slowing down) of the process of evolutionary development. with respect to the major ideas and ideologies. As Alfred Adler said “Death is really a great blessing for humanity; without it, there could be no real progress. People who lived forever would not only hamper and discourage the young, but they would themselves lack sufficient stimulus to be creative.”
July 28, 2024
I listened to the 10-hour audio version of this title (read by Adam Barr, Penguin Audio, 2024).
This book is a sequel coming nearly two decades after Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005).
My 4-star review of the latter book on GoodReads:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This sequel is much shorter and less compelling than the original, but it comes at a time when alarm bells are ringing louder in the wake of ChatGPT and neural implants. In the 2005 book, Kurzweil predicted that AI will surpass human-level intelligence and that human life will decouple from biology in ~25 years. His new time frame is mid-2040s. If Kurzweil's prediction is accurate, the next sequel will be titled The Singularity Is Here!
In this sequel, Kurzweil reexamines the exponential growth of technology and discusses its impact on almost every facet of human life, from reduction in poverty, crime, and war casualties to improvements in health, nutrition, education, intelligence, and political empowerment. We will soon be able to rebuild the world, atom by atom, with devices like nanobots, extend life radically beyond the current age limit of ~120, and vastly expand our intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud, thus freeing our mental power from the space limitation of the human skull.
Kurzweil also devotes much commentary to the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including their adverse effects on employment and safety (e.g., of autonomous cars), and on the societal discomfort with the notion of virtually reviving deceased individuals through a combination of their data and DNA.
The employment downside is illusory, but there is an interesting psychological effect at work here. In the past, technology has benefited the society as a whole, even when a few specific members were hurt. However, those who were saved, for example, by not dying of a specific eradicated disease, are faceless (we cannot name them), those who lost their jobs because they worked on treating patients having that disease are known and their suffering is on full display.
I end my review by listing the titles of the books 8 chapters that follow an unnumbered introductory chapter.
Chapter 1: Where Are We in the Six Stages
Chapter 2: Reinventing Intelligence
Chapter 3: Who Am I?
Chapter 4: Life Is Getting Exponentially Better
Chapter 5: The Future of Jobs—Good or Bad?
Chapter 6: The Next Thirty Years in Health and Well-Being
Chapter 7: Peril
Chapter 8: Dialogue with Cassandra
At the time of this retelling of the story of Singularity, we are facing even more-challenging doubts and questions. For example, when we say that we will outlaw warrior robots making life-and-death decisions, unless a human-being is involved in the loop, will we be satisfied with a human being whose mental faculties have been augmented with AI? Then, if the augmented part of the decision-maker's brain is orders of magnitude more intelligent than his/her original brain, isn't this an AI making the decision?
This book is a sequel coming nearly two decades after Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005).
My 4-star review of the latter book on GoodReads:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This sequel is much shorter and less compelling than the original, but it comes at a time when alarm bells are ringing louder in the wake of ChatGPT and neural implants. In the 2005 book, Kurzweil predicted that AI will surpass human-level intelligence and that human life will decouple from biology in ~25 years. His new time frame is mid-2040s. If Kurzweil's prediction is accurate, the next sequel will be titled The Singularity Is Here!
In this sequel, Kurzweil reexamines the exponential growth of technology and discusses its impact on almost every facet of human life, from reduction in poverty, crime, and war casualties to improvements in health, nutrition, education, intelligence, and political empowerment. We will soon be able to rebuild the world, atom by atom, with devices like nanobots, extend life radically beyond the current age limit of ~120, and vastly expand our intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud, thus freeing our mental power from the space limitation of the human skull.
Kurzweil also devotes much commentary to the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including their adverse effects on employment and safety (e.g., of autonomous cars), and on the societal discomfort with the notion of virtually reviving deceased individuals through a combination of their data and DNA.
The employment downside is illusory, but there is an interesting psychological effect at work here. In the past, technology has benefited the society as a whole, even when a few specific members were hurt. However, those who were saved, for example, by not dying of a specific eradicated disease, are faceless (we cannot name them), those who lost their jobs because they worked on treating patients having that disease are known and their suffering is on full display.
I end my review by listing the titles of the books 8 chapters that follow an unnumbered introductory chapter.
Chapter 1: Where Are We in the Six Stages
Chapter 2: Reinventing Intelligence
Chapter 3: Who Am I?
Chapter 4: Life Is Getting Exponentially Better
Chapter 5: The Future of Jobs—Good or Bad?
Chapter 6: The Next Thirty Years in Health and Well-Being
Chapter 7: Peril
Chapter 8: Dialogue with Cassandra
At the time of this retelling of the story of Singularity, we are facing even more-challenging doubts and questions. For example, when we say that we will outlaw warrior robots making life-and-death decisions, unless a human-being is involved in the loop, will we be satisfied with a human being whose mental faculties have been augmented with AI? Then, if the augmented part of the decision-maker's brain is orders of magnitude more intelligent than his/her original brain, isn't this an AI making the decision?
June 30, 2024
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.
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.
July 7, 2024
Here are the main thoughts from Ray Kurzweil's book "The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI":
Complexity of Context: The vast number of potential contextual relationships in language demonstrates why even advanced AI like GPT-4 struggles with maintaining context over long narratives.
Superhuman Insights: Advanced neural networks can extract insights and achieve performance levels beyond human capabilities in areas like gaming, driving, medical imaging, and protein folding.
Renewable Energy and Democracy: The spread of cheap renewable energy can lead to material abundance, but equitable distribution requires democratic systems, which have historically been promoted by information technologies.
Technological Evolution and Democracy: The historical progression from the telegraph to social media has expanded the reach of democracy and individual rights, and future technological advancements will further these ideals.
Vertical Farming: Vertical farming has numerous benefits, including reducing pollution, eliminating the need for pesticides, and enabling local food production. Technological advancements will make it increasingly cost-effective and widespread.
Future of Agriculture: Innovations in energy, materials science, robotics, and AI will significantly reduce the cost of vertical farming, potentially leading to near-free food production.
3D Printing in Biology: 3D printing is being applied to biology, enabling the creation of human body tissues and organs. This method, using scaffolds and stem cells, promises to overcome the limitations of traditional organ transplants.
3D-Printed Buildings: The development of 3D printing for construction is advancing rapidly, with China leading the way. This technology promises to reduce construction costs and increase customization.
Overcoming Aging and Diseases: By the 2030s, advancements in various technologies are expected to significantly combat diseases and the aging process.
Automation of Work: A significant portion of work in developed economies can already be automated. Continued AI progress will lead to extensive automation, transforming industries and reducing costs.
Food Accessibility: As AI and robotics advance, and renewable energy becomes cheaper, the price of agricultural products will drop, making healthy food accessible to all.
Longevity Escape Velocity: The concept of "longevity escape velocity" suggests that if anti-aging research can extend life expectancy annually, it will allow time for further breakthroughs, potentially leading to extreme longevity.
Nanotechnology and Health: Future developments in nanotechnology, such as artificial blood cells and lungs, could vastly improve human health and longevity, making conditions like heart attacks much rarer.
Complexity of Context: The vast number of potential contextual relationships in language demonstrates why even advanced AI like GPT-4 struggles with maintaining context over long narratives.
Superhuman Insights: Advanced neural networks can extract insights and achieve performance levels beyond human capabilities in areas like gaming, driving, medical imaging, and protein folding.
Renewable Energy and Democracy: The spread of cheap renewable energy can lead to material abundance, but equitable distribution requires democratic systems, which have historically been promoted by information technologies.
Technological Evolution and Democracy: The historical progression from the telegraph to social media has expanded the reach of democracy and individual rights, and future technological advancements will further these ideals.
Vertical Farming: Vertical farming has numerous benefits, including reducing pollution, eliminating the need for pesticides, and enabling local food production. Technological advancements will make it increasingly cost-effective and widespread.
Future of Agriculture: Innovations in energy, materials science, robotics, and AI will significantly reduce the cost of vertical farming, potentially leading to near-free food production.
3D Printing in Biology: 3D printing is being applied to biology, enabling the creation of human body tissues and organs. This method, using scaffolds and stem cells, promises to overcome the limitations of traditional organ transplants.
3D-Printed Buildings: The development of 3D printing for construction is advancing rapidly, with China leading the way. This technology promises to reduce construction costs and increase customization.
Overcoming Aging and Diseases: By the 2030s, advancements in various technologies are expected to significantly combat diseases and the aging process.
Automation of Work: A significant portion of work in developed economies can already be automated. Continued AI progress will lead to extensive automation, transforming industries and reducing costs.
Food Accessibility: As AI and robotics advance, and renewable energy becomes cheaper, the price of agricultural products will drop, making healthy food accessible to all.
Longevity Escape Velocity: The concept of "longevity escape velocity" suggests that if anti-aging research can extend life expectancy annually, it will allow time for further breakthroughs, potentially leading to extreme longevity.
Nanotechnology and Health: Future developments in nanotechnology, such as artificial blood cells and lungs, could vastly improve human health and longevity, making conditions like heart attacks much rarer.
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