The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil
The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil
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The Age of Spiritual Machines

Author: Ray Kurzweil

Narrator: Alan Sklar

Abridged: 3 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 12/28/1998


Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Bold futurist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near, offers a framework for envisioning the future of machine intelligence—“a book for anyone who wonders where human technology is going next” (The New York Times Book Review).

“Kurzweil offers a thought-provoking analysis of human and artificial intelligence and a unique look at a future in which the capabilities of the computer and the species that invented it grow ever closer.”—BILL GATES
 
Imagine a world where the difference between man and machine blurs, where the line between humanity and technology fades, and where the soul and the silicon chip unite. This is not science fiction. This is the twenty-first century according to Ray Kurzweil, the “restless genius” (The Wall Street Journal), “ultimate thinking machine” (Forbes), and inventor of the most innovative and compelling technology of our era. In his inspired hands, life in the new millennium no longer seems daunting. Instead, it promises to be an age in which the marriage of human sensitivity and artificial intelligence fundamentally alters and improves the way we live.
 
More than just a list of predictions, Kurzweil’s prophetic blueprint for the future guides us through the inexorable advances that will result in:
• Computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain (with human-level capabilities not far behind)
• Relationships with automated personalities who will be our teachers, companions, and lovers
• Information fed straight into our brains along direct neural pathways
 
Eventually, the distinction between humans and computers will have become sufficiently blurred that when the machines claim to be conscious, we will believe them.

About The Author

Ray Kurzweil is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Singularity Is Near and the national bestseller The Age of Spiritual Machines, among others. One of the leading inventors of our time, he won a Grammy Award for outstanding achievements in music technology in 2015 and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002. He is the recipient of many honors, including the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the nation's highest honor in technology. He lives in Boston.


Reviews

Goodreads review by J.L. on January 27, 2022

"Once a computer achieves a human level of ability in understanding abstract concepts, recognizing patterns, and other attributes of human intelligence, it will be able to apply this ability to a knowledge base of all human-acquired...knowledge.” I appreciated the conceptual framework for looking at......more

Goodreads review by Manny on January 18, 2020

As an AI person, I have mixed feelings about this book. Half of me says that it's nonsense: the author comes across as ludicrously optimistic, indeed quite out of touch with reality, and saturated with hubris to the point where it's starting to crystallize out in his hair. Who could ever take this c......more

Goodreads review by Otto on July 22, 2020

Kurzweil wrote this book in 1999. I regret to inform you that it has not aged terribly well to a reader like me in 2020. The book's predictions for the years 2009 and 2019 contain a lot of wishful thinking. Most of the good stuff that he predicted for 2019 is probably still decades or even centuries......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on May 07, 2009

Ray Kurzweil has been accused by some as being incredibly optimistic in his vision for the future of humanity and the computer's that we've created. His predictions, however, have an uncanny way of coming to pass, at least in large part. Spiritual Machines was written in 1999 and speaks of the advan......more


Quotes

The Age of Spiritual Machines will blow your mind. Kurzweil lays out a scenario that might seem like science fiction if it weren’t coming from a proven entrepreneur.”San Francisco Chronicle

“From the arrowhead to the jackhammer, toolmakers like Kurzweil have changed the world we live in. . . . This is a book for anyone who likes to think about where current trends are taking us.”Christian Science Monitor

“Tantalizing—sometimes terrifying. . . . a welcome challenge to beliefs we hold dear.”Boston Globe

“Kurzweil’s broad outlook and fresh approach make his optimism hard to resist.”Kirkus Reviews

“This is a book for computer enthusiasts, science fiction writers in search of cutting-edge themes and anyone who wonders where human technology is going next.”The New York Times