The Singularity is Nearer
When We Merge with AI
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
The legendary oracle of technological change explains how AI will transform our species beyond recognition.
‘The best person I know at predicting the future of AI’ BILL GATES
'Essential reading to understand our exponential times' MUSTAFA SULEYMAN
'Fascinating . . . raises the most profound philosophical questions' YUVAL NOAH HARARI
By the end of this decade, AI will exceed human levels of intelligence. During the 2030s, it will become ‘superintelligent’, vastly outstripping our capabilities and enabling dramatic interventions in our bodies. By 2045, we will be able to connect our brains directly with AI, enhancing our intelligence a millionfold and expanding our consciousness in ways we can barely imagine. This is the Singularity.
Ray Kurzweil is one of the greatest inventors of our time with over 60 years’ experience in the field of Artificial Intelligence, whose long-range predictions about the rise of the internet, AI and bioengineering have all borne out. In this visionary, fundamentally optimistic book, Kurzweil explains how the Singularity will occur, explores what it will mean to live free from the limits of biology and argues that we can and will transform life on Earth profoundly for the better.
'The greatest oracle of our digital age' PETER H. DIAMANDIS, founder of XPRIZE
'Curious about the future? Read this book' VINT CERF, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this fanciful prognosis, Kurzweil explores how technological advances made since the publication of his 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near, will affect humanity's future. His predictions are based on his belief that around 2045 and "aided by superhuman AI, we will engineer brain–computer interfaces that vastly expand our neocortices with layers of virtual neurons" in the cloud, achieving the "singularity" point at which humanity and technology will merge. Discussing some of the mind-bending possibilities such an event would engender, Kurzweil suggests it may one day be possible to transfer one's memories and personality to a digital medium, raising questions over whether the digital version should be considered the same person as the biological original and whether "our subjective consciousness may somehow encompass all copies of this defining information." Unfortunately, most of Kurzweil's arguments cite as evidence only his unwavering confidence in the inevitable march of scientific progress. For example, he posits that "medical nanorobots" will forestall aging by repairing organs and adjusting blood levels without providing much detail on the science needed to realize such an innovation. The bounty of graphs suggesting that technological advances lie behind long-term declines in annual hours worked, violent crime, and authoritarianism paper over the potential negative consequences of advanced technology, which are treated largely in passing. This has more speculation than science.
