Description

By (author) Kurzweil Ray

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Examines the next step in the evolutionary process of the union of human and machine. This title 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.

”Startling in scope and bravado.” The New York Times

A radical and optimistic view of the future course of human development from the bestselling author of How to Create a Mind and who Bill Gates calls ”the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence.”

For over three decades, 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.

PRAISE FOR THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR

”Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.” Los Angeles Times

”Elaborate, smart and persuasive.” The Boston Globe

”A pleasure to read.” The Wall Street Journal

An Amazon Best Science Book of 2005

A CBS News Best Autumn Books of 2005

A St Louis Post-Dispatch Best Nonfiction Book of 2005

Review quote

Ray Kurzweil is the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence. His intriguing new book envisions a future in which information technologies have advanced so far and fast that they enable humanity to transcend its biological limitations – transforming our lives in ways we can”t yet imagine

Biographical note

Ray Kurzweil is a prize-winning author and scientist and the director of engineering at Google. Recipient of the MIT-Lemelson Prize (the world”s largest for innovation), and inducted into the Inventor”s Hall of Fame, he received the 1999 National Medal of Technology. has been described as ”the restless genius” by The Wall Street Journal, and ”the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes. Inc. magazine ranked him 8th among entrepreneurs in the United States, calling him the ”rightful heir to Thomas Edison,” and PBS selected Ray as one of 16 ”revolutionaries who made America,” along with other inventors of the past two centuries. He is considered one of the world”s leading inventors, thinkers, and futurists, with a 30-year track record of accurate predictions.