All we've seen in the last few centuries is progress, so of course that's all we ever will see. It does have weak spots, namely the tendency to assume that technology will progress according to plan, not accounting for technological setbacks very well. It's an ambitious work, and not the first book the author has written on this topic. Artificial intelligences, critical to the theory of the singularity, are by definition capable of expanding their own capabilities, and will drive much change.

Possible technologies such as genetic engineering, nanotech manufacturing, and robotics and artificial intelligence (the author's 'GNR' triumvirate), will transform not only how we live but what we think of as a human being.

The future will not look like the present with better tech, it's going to be pretty unrecognizable. It's a fascinating concept, and one I've been introduced to in the fiction of Charles Stross. The basic premise is that technology is progressing at an ever-increasing rate, and at a certain point, change will continue so rapidly that it's difficult to predict anything beyond that point, the singularity. The Singularity is Near reads like a cross between an academic paper and an Isaac Asimov science popularization. It's also very well written, particularly for such a dense topic. Kurzweil is obviously enamored of computers.

And it's a love letter to technology, Mr. It's a futurist treatise on how ever-accelerating changes will change society. We will either create or become something superhuman, in various ways.Ĭhange is the process by which the future invades our lives. Is not a certainty but in my opinion is a plausibility in the working lifetimes of most people here, that there will be perhaps something superhuman come along.

The singularity is here