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    The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
    Unavailable
    The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
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    The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
    Audiobook24 hours

    The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

    Written by Ray Kurzweil

    Narrated by George K Wilson

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    For over three decades, the great inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.



    That merging is the essence of the Singularity, an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today-the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity. In this new world, there will be no clear distinction between human and machine, real reality and virtual reality.



    While the social and philosophical ramifications of these changes will be profound, and the threats they pose considerable, The Singularity Is Near maintains a radically optimistic view of the future course of human development. As such, it offers a view of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of technological ingenuity and a genuinely inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Audio
    Release dateMay 4, 2011
    ISBN9781452671833
    Unavailable
    The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

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    Reviews for The Singularity Is Near

    4/5

    415 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a comprehensive account of the state of the art of three interconnected technologies: genetics, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. A major premise is that progress in these fields is proceeding at an exponential pace. I’ll accept that, but unfortunately I got around to reading this large volume almost fifteen years too late! Some of Kurzweil’s predictions have already come true, many seem just as far off as they must have when the book was written. But that is the nature of writing about the future; reading these kinds of books is best done in the present.My biggest objection to the work, however, is Kurzweil’s use of the word “intelligence” without clearly stating what he means by it. He does not usually include “artificial” along with it, so he intentionally leads the reader to assume that his massively more powerful computers are intelligent in the same sense as humans. Not until a much later chapter does he discuss “consciousness.” This concept he brushes away as being impossible to detect in anyone or anything other than oneself.He mentions that he is like “the pattern that water makes in a stream as it rushes past the rocks in its path. The actual molecules of water change every millisecond, but the pattern persists for hours or even years.” I like that. Very poetical. But I’d like more specifics. Where is this pattern. It affects physical reality. It is caused by physical objects, and physical laws. But the pattern itself isn’t really physical. It is metaphysical. Maybe with the help of Kurzweil’s intelligent machines, we’ll eventually figure it all out some day.
    • 4/5
      Kurzweil is one of the best futurists out there. His predictions about what is coming in the field of technology are undoubtedly very close to the mark. His assumption that the price of technologies will continue to fall while their efficiency increases is only true in some areas. Pencils and houses still cost. And he shows his religion with his ascribing teleological purposes to evolution.
    • 4/5
      Excellent charts (both log and linear) showing exponential growth and change. Accelerating pace of change is vividly depicted. Dense book with deep notes and references.
    • 5/5
      If this book convinced me of anything, it's that technology allowing for humans to transcend biology will in fact be available shortly. However, it I couldn't share Kurzweil's optimism that it will be possible. Our society is far too conservative and capitalistic for something so foreign and reforming. His writing is generally easy to follow and although his optimistic bias is obvious, it's almost impossible to refute. Even if the Singularity does not happen in our lifetime, we are certainly in for massive change!
    • 5/5
      Kurzweil is not for everyone. He is clearly a brilliant individual who has the pedigree to make the claims he does about life in the future. If he is guilty of anything, it is getting too technical (his mathematical explanations will have your head spinning) and maybe too hopeful. Kurzweil will have you believing the world is on course to be a technological Nirvana, and soon too.

      Here's why Kurzweil is worth reading:

      He'll have you rethinking what human means -as if it isn't complicated enough.
      Living forever
      The promise of machines
      His well-supported timeline of the progression of technology and where it's likely to go
      Nanotechnology
      His hypothetical dialogues between the same individual from different point in time -the present, future, and far future.
      He's a nice break from the doom and gloom of most print and news today.

    • 4/5
      Enjoyed it much! It's a very bold projection of a possible future. Along the way Ray Kurzweil brings you up to speed on the state of cutting-edge technology that figures into this future. At times it did feel like you were reading through technical abstracts though. I really enjoyed the mock conversations at the end of a section where various temporal and famous characters discuss the implication of the changes predicted. The changes Ray Kurzweil speaks of for the future and the speed of their arrival seem like big challenges for social stability of the globe though. Hang on folks we are in for a ride.
    • 5/5
      The Singularity is Near is one of the few books I've ever read that literally freaked me out. I tend to take everything I read with a grain of salt, but I fell hook, line, and sinker for this book. The essential premise is right in the title -- the singularity is near. But what is the Singularity? It's the blending of technology and biology -- right in the subtitle. Kurzweil makes his case methodically, laying out a case for the exponential growth of technology and then discussing the impact it will have on humans. The scope of his argument is pretty stunning and involving such things as the ability to upload our brains into computers, immortality, the end of the distinction between virtual reality and reality, programmable blood, and the like.I have to say that reading over that list still leaves me wondering if it can all be real. It just seems so spectacularly far-fetched. But the influence of the book is indisputable and seems to have fueled the imaginations of many prominent thinkers. Having said all this, I still wonder about these changes. Kurzweil is definitely in favor of these changes and his reservations are pretty minimal. I do wonder, however, about all these things. Do we lose our humanity in this transformation? What about tech glitches? If everything is so computer dependent, what happens if something goes wrong? What happens to religion? Will people live in the "real" world when virtual worlds are more amenable to our whims and desires? All this is going to happen, according to Kurzweil, in the 2040s. Health permitting, I ought to be around. But will it happen that fast? Will it happen at all? Kurzweil seems to base his predictions on existing technologies and traces them out to their logical extensions. In that regard, it's not utopian. But it seems as if we've heard these fantastic predictions in the past and in the end, we're pretty much the same. So what does all of this mean? I have no earthly idea. It's too overwhelming for me to really comprehend. But maybe our posthuman selves will do a better job with these sort of things.
    • 3/5
      Rather more speculative than his previous two in the same vein. Reaching a bit, possibly.
    • 4/5
      slow start, sorta pompous style, mind bendingly good in the last two thirds. Very optimistic view of the future that is very convincingly laid out.
    • 4/5
      The exponential growth of knowledge and the fusion of different disciplines (nanotech, biotech, electronics, robotics)in the near future are the fundamental ideas. There is no need for a long argument to understand this facts.
    • 3/5
      A strong AI researcher looks forward to the day when human computing capacity is over taken by computers. Overly optimistic, he looks forward into what the world will be like 20, 40 and 60 years from now.
    • 5/5
      Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is NearI Stumbled upon this book after posting an article about Google (data) Clouds on some internet bulletin boards I frequent.While I believe it is rather arrogant to think one can come up with a better design than biology that is pretty much the premise of this book.No one would accuse Kurzweil of being mystical. Maybe I just don’t have a wide enough imagination but I can’t see how you could ever animate the chemical equivalent of a human being. Of course I don’t see how you get from a monkey to man either, without some kind of divine spark that is. But that’s just me. I do find it rather unsettling to think I’m just a handful of salt and a couple buckets of water though. Human conceit, sigh.At first it appeared that Kurzweil was ignorant of human nature but he does address this at the end of the book. Apparently the progress of technology is so rampant that it will happily steamroller any human objection.I think I am experiencing cognitive dissonance. On one hand I’m reading this book about how wonderful the future will be because of technology. On the other hand I am dealing with trying to get my kitchen floor heating thermostat repaired. Which is quickly turning into a task that is taking many more steps than I would have thought possible. And I am dealing with having an MP3 player jack installed in my car. Again something that is consuming much more time that I had budgeted for the job. Not to mention the fun (not!) of attempting to return some music CD’s to the (automated – gah!) library. I mean has this guy ever tried to work with a Microsoft software product? Come on!Kurzweil is a cock eyed, psychotic optimist if he thinks that technology is going to make our future better. Already we are contracting newfangled diseases like adrenal burn out when trying to cope with the exponential pace of modern day life.Because computation underlies the foundations of everything we care about, from the economy to human intellect and creativity,…Umm, it does?Kurzweil reminds me of a boss I used to have - Ian. I was in charge of automating some reporting. Ian would promise his higher ups some pie-in-the-sky unattainable data because he had heard from someone somewhere that it might just be possible -- one day. Or that our competitors had such data about themselves. Of course our database was incomplete, inaccurate and poorly designed. It would never, could never produce such data on our company without a serious overhaul. And then he would expect me to deliver said data according to his unrealistic schedule. I would lie in my bed in the morning in that mystical dawn between slumber and waking and promise that today would be the day I would get along with Ian. We were both professionals and adults, how hard could it be? It never happened. Always within less than a minute of being in a room together we both would be yelling. It was curious. Back to the book.Kurzweil seems to been a master delegator. He doesn’t quite know how it’s going to be done but he’s confident that some mastermind somewhere will come up with an answer to the problem. Bully for him. I’m just not confident about things unless I understand them fully. Only at that point would I be secure in making any kind of assertion about it.Recently in the British news there was a story about a sprinter who was born without legs. He was fitted with ‘blades’ which actually help him to run faster than any human with normal legs. If technology is going to ‘make us better than biology’ I just find it really disturbing to think that humans will be redesigned to such a standard.I see a whole new meaning to the word ‘nostalgia’ if at some point our biology is completely replaced by ‘better’ nano-engineered designed. Scary indeed.
    • 2/5
      This felt like the data to back up his claims set forth in the Age of Spiritual Machines, which I liked a lot more. Still, it's diffcult to read this and not take seriously what at first blush can seem to be some pretty far-out ideas. Fascinating - but read the previous book first!
    • 4/5
      Great book, probably need to read it another 10^2 times to truly internalize the information, but it was interesting and insightful to say the least.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      This was a fairly heavy book to read and frankly I hope none of it comes true. ?