This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“To this day, I remain convinced of
this basic philosophy: no matter what quandaries we face – business problems,
health issues, relationship difficulties, as well as the great scientific,
social, and cultural challenges of our time – there is an idea that can enable
us to prevail. Furthermore, we can find
that idea. And when we find it, we need
to implement it. My life has been shaped
by this imperative. The power of an idea
– this is itself an idea.” – Ray Kurzweil, Prologue: The Power of Ideas,
Page 24
“Although it may seem difficult to envision the capabilities
of a future civilization whose intelligence vastly outstrips our own, our
ability to create models of reality in our minds enables us to articulate
meaningful insights into the implications of this impending merger of our
biological thinking with the nonbiological intelligence we are creating.” – Ray
Kurzweil, Prologue: The Power of Ideas, Page 27
“The key idea underlying the impending Singularity is that
the pace of change of our human-created technology is accelerating and its
powers are expanding at an exponential pace.
Exponential growth is deceptive.
It starts out almost imperceptibly and then explodes with unexpected
fury – unexpected, that is, if one does not take care to follow its trajectory.”
– Ray Kurzweil, Chapter One: The Six Epochs, Page 30
Is This An Overview?
There is power in an idea.
An idea can overcome any challenge.
Challenges and conflicts in business, relationships, science, and
culture can be overcome by implementing an appropriate idea. People can envision a future, can foresee
problems, and use those findings to adjust what can be. The Singularity is a reference to the impact
of rapid technological change that transforms society. The rate of change of human created technology
is exponential, rather than linear. With
exponential change, the initial change is slow but then becomes exceedingly
fast.
As there are limits to biological thinking, humans are
merging with nonbiological intelligence that humans are creating. Nonbiological portions of intelligence will
give people power over their own fate.
Intelligence that will culminate into three revolutions. The revolutions in Genetics, Nanotechnology,
and Robotics. Nanotechnology will enable
the reconstruction of biology through every molecule. Robotics will enable intelligence beyond
human capabilities. Genetics will
bioengineer any biological difficulty.
Caveats?
The focus are the benefits of technology, with some ideas to
the problems. Technology is assumed to
provide mainly benefits, will keep the best of what humans have to offer, and
that the benefits develop faster than the problems of the technologies. Implicit assumptions are that people agree on
what the best human traits are, and that humans have the same wants from
technology. The problem with the assumptions,
is that there are conflicts of interest in what people want from
technology.
Various potential technologies are assumed to exist in the
future, often based on practical science.
But sometimes, the explanations and ideas appear to be based on science
but are not. This book made various
claims about what should have occurred, making this book an interesting
retrospective about the capabilities of technology and their limitations.
