
The Singularity Is Near
When Humans Transcend Biology
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Narrated by:
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George Wilson
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By:
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Ray Kurzweil
“Startling in scope and bravado.” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times)
“Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.” (Los Angeles Times)
“Elaborate, smart and persuasive.” (The Boston Globe)
“A pleasure to read.” (The Wall Street Journal)
One of CBS News’ Best Fall Books of 2005
Among St Louis Post-Dispatch’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2005
One of Amazon.com’s Best Science Books of 2005
A radical and optimistic view of the future course of human development from the best-selling author of How to Create a Mind and The Singularity is Nearer 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.
©2005 Ray Kurzweil (P)2019 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
“Anyone can grasp Mr. Kurzweil’s main idea: that mankind’s technological knowledge has been snowballing, with dizzying prospects for the future. The basics are clearly expressed. But for those more knowledgeable and inquisitive, the author argues his case in fascinating detail.... The Singularity Is Near is startling in scope and bravado.” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times)
“Filled with imaginative, scientifically grounded speculation.... The Singularity Is Near is worth reading just for its wealth of information, all lucidly presented.... [It’s] an important book. Not everything that Kurzweil predicts may come to pass, but a lot of it will, and even if you don’t agree with everything he says, it’s all worth paying attention to.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
“[An] exhilarating and terrifyingly deep look at where we are headed as a species.... Mr. Kurzweil is a brilliant scientist and futurist, and he makes a compelling and, indeed, a very moving case for his view of the future.” (The New York Sun)
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Interesting subject. Boring delivery.
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Lot’s of great detail and very valuable information
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Then exceed it.
However, since 2005 we've learned that our intelligence does not solely come from our brain. About half of hydrocephalic patients with >95% of their brain replaced with cerebrospinal fluid, have IQs greater than 100.
One student with greater than 97% of a normal brain replaced with cerebrospinal fluid, had an IQ of 126, was socially normal, and graduated with honors with a degree in mathematics.
How could be do that without the neural connections, data storage, and processing power Ray describes? We have no idea.
But it proves that the brain alone is not the source of human intelligence and so reverse engineering it won't create the greater than human level intelligence necessary for the singularity.
Terminal lucidity, Alzheimer patients whose brains haven't functioned for years suddenly becoming completely coherent days or hours before death is another proof that there's more to intellect than a functioning brain.
The Singularity is NOT near
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Aged fairly well
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uggghhh
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Ray is extremely intelligent!
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Still relevant
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Terrible narrator
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Lo disfrute de principio a fin!
Me gustaría leer lo que tiene que decir con el advenimiento del chatGPT, estaré esperando cualquier otro libro de él
Great book
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Maybe at the time
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