Ray Kurzweil - The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computer Exceed Human Intelligence

Pros: Some interesting extrapolation on computing trends
Cons: This man should not be trying to invent scientific laws on his lonesome!

"The Age of Spiritual Machines" is a book extrapolating trends in information processing by Ray Kurzweil.

What can one say about Ray Kurzweil that hasn't been said before? He is a man who has taken on some of the most difficult tasks in...

Pros: Well written, provocative, good quotes
Cons: Somewhat arrogant, intricate thinking often founded on unfounded premises, justifying arguments with false humanism

Ray Kurzweil is described as the ‘ultimate thinking machine’ by Forbes magazine on the back of his book, ‘The Age of Spiritual Machines’. Ray, (and we’ll call him Ray) has invented and innovated several remarkable devices, such as the Kurzweil reading...

Pros: Really makes you think about the possibilities for the future.
Cons: I'm not sure all of his premises are true (though he makes a good case for them).

This is one of the books that really make you think. The author makes a convincing case for the major transformations to come regarding human existence itself over the next hundred years as a result of computing technology. Some of his predictions may...

Pros: Fascinating ideas--the author has fun and you will, too.
Cons: Perhaps a bit overly self-promotional.

As a long-time science-fiction reader, I found The Age of Spiritual Machines enthralling. So that's where they get all those ideas, I thought, recognizing concept after concept from novels I've read over the past few years. (Kurzweil's book is...

Pros: visionary technophilic sound prohpetic
Cons: that some might not enjoy the challenge

Every fifty years emerges a voice worthy of being heard earnestly telling about the future with such ease and grace that it might be today or the day after. Kurzweil, whom I have observed at a distance for fifteen years, is such a voice, and his book is...

Pros: Wondrously ambitious. Imaginative, even creative at times.
Cons: Fictional narratives don't always work.

Twenty years ago, back in high school (Yes, the writer is old.) when we were reading the two great anti-utopian novels of the century, Brave New World and 1984, there was some discussion as to which place we would rather live. We sort of chose Brave New...

Pros: A very stunning look into the future that kept me reading.
Cons: A bit scary and awkward at first.

With the recent opening of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) having people wondering what the future, few rarely decide to actually take it seriously. But what many people know is that computers will be smarter and they will be totally independent in the...

Pros: An intriguing and likely view of the future
Cons: I am not fond of his woman of the future, though the device is effective

Ray Kurzweil has been amazingly accurate in past predictions, and if he is right this time, then humans are merely a transitory stage of development on the way to the real thing -- true thinking machines. Indeed, as far as Kurzweil is concerned, the...

Pros: life in silico
Cons: death of all that we hold dear

Etched in Silicon my heart is uploaded, etched in silicon my soul is uploaded we are the beast we are the machine and we are raped of life and soul. Coders beware the life you replicate may be your own. The coded will fight back, the transistors will...