The Singularity Is Near

“Part of the reason why Kurzweil is so prominent is because he actually puts a date on it. He says that this is going to happen in the year 2045. And he has a relatively impressive record of predicting technological change in the past. He’s really staked everything on this notion that 2045 comes along and it’s going to be this point— often dismissively referred to as ‘the Rapture of the nerds’ — when we’re all subsumed into this giant all-consuming general superintelligence, where human existence as we know it ceases to be and, in turn, we reach this heavenly situation. I wouldn’t be the first to look at him this way but I read Kurzweil’s work as essentially a work of religious mysticism. I think there’s no other way to read it, really.” Read more...

The best books on Transhumanism

Mark O'Connell, Journalist

“Kurzweil has amazing ideas in his books, and has been clearly and loudly propounding the idea that we will have artificial general intelligence soon and that it will create something like utopia.” Read more...

The best books on Artificial Intelligence

Calum Chace, Novelist