The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI Hardcover – June 25, 2024

This book blew my mind! One of my favorite reads this year! I listened to the audiobook, and was so stricken by the material I had to order a hard copy to mark up and read again. Highly recommend!

This book is enjoyable because it’s more hopeful about the future than most books. Kurzweil revisits his Six Stages of computer-human evolution and the historically relevant development of AI to modern times—most interesting. The uploading of minds was way cool. Kurzweil explains the world is getting better with lots of supporting graphs. And the large print version of the book was a blessing. Over all, the book is fascinating.However, there’s a few little problems with this book:The Who I AM chapter is too philosophical for me. It tries to answer questions like self awareness, consciousness and qualia. All of which are known to be neural circuitry in the brain. Even emotional circuity has been discovered. And these sub-circuits and numerous sensors give rise to feelings of being an individual that knows oneself. The books The Archaeology of Mind and Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain explain these subprocesses in the brain.Another issue was the lack of social and psychological descriptions in the post-singularity world. What happens to babies, young children, old people with Alzheimer’s, social structure and governments? The only book that explains this social science and technology is a science fiction book Playing for Eternity: A Utopian Novel. However, I’d like to read an actual non-fiction book that answers these social and psychological questions about what happens after the Singularity.

Exciting and uplifting as per customary for Kurzweil in such a gloomy era, hope his predictions come true as they did before.

To have a sense of what we can expect in the future, we have to examine the trends of the past. That is the foundation of this very readable book. Kurzweil does a thorough job of presenting historical data in graphs and tables and explaining how the trends point to what we can expect in the next quarter century. You’d think this is all technology focused, but it is much more than that. He looks at trends in violent crime (declining), health and longevity (improving), poverty (declining) and other factors and explains how social trends enhance the development of technology and in turn how technology has a positive impact on society.This is an excellent choice for book club discussions. There’s enough detail about advancing technology to help the layperson to understand it and at the same time encourage further research. Since it a prediction of the future, one can make a argument in support of his conclusions or suggest some alternative paths. I can envision some spirited discussions.When you think about, looking to the future is an accelerating trend in itself. The Singularity is Nearer and Kurzweil’s other books are both the catalyst and result of that trend.

This book has great points and analysis of trends, and a sensible outlook of what they might lead to. If you already understand the main ideas in this book, it's a good refresher and will solidify your current understanding, but may not really lead to any new "mindblowing" revelations. At times, his head is too in the clouds, and his age shows with predictions that read like bad 1960s sci-fi with things like "computorium" "gray goo" and "nanobots". While his overall points stand strong, some specific technologies he thinks will take off don't seem to have any basis or proof of concept in the real world and might be dead in the water, think "solar freakin roadways" style. He is also very full of himself, repeatedly gloating to the reader of all the "predictions" he made over the years that came true. The biggest weakness of this book is by god does he need an editor, it is way too verbose because the information is not organized well and he repeats himself A LOT. The chapters read like independent blog posts rather than a book due to how repetitive some of his points and information is. Often factoids and paragraphs are bizarrely repeated nearly verbatim pages later. But overall, it's a solid read and those uninitiated to the ideas in this book should absolutely heed their importance.

The book is well written and easily understood by a high school grad. The writer makes an effort to give clear, concise information.

A tough read at times due to the technological and scientific details of the subject matter, but incredibly provocative. It’s not a question of what might be coming….it’s coming, inevitably and much sooner than most know. The author treats the mind-blowing benefits and the real risks with equal respect.Anyone who is curious about what their and their children’s lives will be like five, ten, twenty, thirty years from now should read this book.

Excelente libro para entender que es la inteligencia artificial y como esta va a cambiar nuestra vida y el mundo que la rodea.