The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology | 
 enlarge | Author: Ray Kurzweil
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $18.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  122 reviews
Sales Rank: 2152
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 672
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.7
ISBN: 0143037889
Dewey Decimal Number: 660
EAN: 9780143037880
ASIN: 0143037889
Publication Date: September 26, 2006
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 117 more reviews...
 Sure, Ray, I'll take your word for it... July 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Futurists are seductive and so are their fantastical predictions, even when one has absolutely no idea exactly how to evaluate the soundness of their claims. Kurzweil tries with all his might to answer this criticism of the genre but fails nonetheless, offering mound upon mound of at best incomplete graphs that bury his theses behind the madness of immeasurable technological erudition, so (alas) the reader is probably left to do one of two things: ignorantly object or ignorantly serve. It's good fun, much like a fireside game of "what if" at summer camp, and Bill Gates's official endorsement makes it feel populist enough to recommend to your inquisitive friends.
 Maybe July 14, 2008
The book presents an interesting premise that humans will evolve from purely biological to biological/technological and ultimately to technological beings. Whether or not Kurzweil has gotten the time frame right is the question. If he is right, humans are only 20 to 30 years from this singularity. A most thought provoking read.
487 pages + a good editor = 225 pages June 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's a potentially important book as many other reviewers have pointed out but his stream of consciousness writing style gets aggravating. If you can skim, you win. If you read, you bleed. There aren't many things he says fewer than four times. But some of those things have come true, some will and some of the amazing ones may. He has an impressive track record. Now if he'd just add discipline to his writing.
 100 pages of Notes! May 23, 2008
5 out of 13 found this review helpful
Over 600 pages with 100 pages of "notes"!. Lots of rambling commentary. Not worth the money. Watch Nova.
Fascinating... May 19, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
A well-written and optimistic view of humanity's future. If even 1/100th of what Ray Kurzweil predicts comes occurs (which seems likely given his record) - then we are in for a very exciting century indeed.
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