The Singularity Is Near When Humans Transcend Biology

For those interested in what the most prominent futurist of our time predicts for the future - read other reviews on this book by those of us in the community or read the book. I had difficulty staying present while reading this. I think the two most repeated words in this book is nanobots and AI/intelligence/machines. Have fun!

I hear about this book years ago, but I only decided to buy it after a very successful job interview in which most of the conversation delve around this book. I bought the book after the conversation (I knew fairly enough about the singularity before reading the book) and I just finish reading it one year into my new role, because yes, I got the job offer. Now that I’ve read the book I don’t know how come I didn’t do it before. The book starts a bit technical and then the rollercoaster goes into something that resembles futurism and even science fiction, just to slow down at the end and evaluate the reality from an ethical and philosophical perspective. What I like the most about the singularity is how relevant it remains and all the doors that it opened to me. I went into other books and some podcasts (like some futuristic conversations with Joe Rogan). At the end, the book made me thought a lot and question many things I deal with at work and how those things are coming into our day to day lives.

** spoiler alert ** Although this treatise on Singularity was written more than a decade ago, Ray Kurzweil looks to paint a futurist picture of the world a few decades out and a few centuries out quite thoroughly. He mostly accomplishes this by leveraging the exponential trends in tech, healthcare and other fields to depict how society and the state of the world progresses in distinct 'epochs'. Several interesting questions are explored: What does the human body v3.0 look like? What changes will the revolution in GNR (Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics) bring? among others. The book also takes a stance on ontology and consciousness and whether that is something achievable within the realm of singularity. Perhaps the biggest criticism of the book today is the delay in the timelines hypothesized by Ray, in large part due to the slowdown in the exponential trends, which is a central theme in the book. But the author does do his homework in trying to foresee and address these criticisms of the extrapolations. In doing so though, large questions on the timelines remain. The book is certainly heavy reading at certain points and the simulated conversations among humans from the past, present and future doesn't help the readability. All in all, this is an interesting read if you are interested in getting one perspective on what the future looks like, but do read it knowing that it was written more than a decade ago.

Książka napisana dość technicznym żargonem, autor zna się na tym, co pisze. Minęło już tyle czasu, że można sprawdzić pewne przewidywania Kurzweila - sprawdziły się w 50%.