The Singularity Is Near

By Ray Kurzweil

Categories: Science & Math

In this 2005 book, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil argues that technological change is accelerating exponentially and will lead to the singularity, a point at which human and machine intelligence merge. Building on his earlier books The Age of Intelligent Machines and The Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil sets out his Law of Accelerating Returns and traces advances in computing, genetics, nanotechnology and robotics. He describes how the knowledge and skills in our brains could be combined with the speed and capacity of our machines.

Recommended by 5 people

• Stewart Brand
• Peter Diamandis
• Jason Silva: “A List of my favorite books!”
• Dario Amodei: “The first moment I can remember is I read Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity Is Near... A lot of the stuff has kind of played out not too far from what I would expect.”
• Brian Armstrong: “Change is accelerating, humans are bad at predicting it, and A.I. will likely transform the world by the late 2030’s. Many major problems, like education and disease, will be totally transformed by this in our lifetimes.”