Rating: 
Summary: Very interesting and worth reading. A provocative thinker.
Review: I'm very critical so 3 stars is a pretty good mark. Kurzweil is quite intelligent and thoughtful, and lays his predictions on the line. He also displays none of this false modesty that is so annoying. He weaves together the latest theories, with his powerful imagination and extensive experience on the cutting edge of technology. His predictions are very well-informed (though not always convincing). I also liked that he seems to be pretty much in favor of free market ideas. When he mentioned some welfare type laws' likely existence in the future, it was more a prediction than an endorsement.However, although I do not go for false modesty, his references to his achievements did not impress me that much, like starting the VoiceExpress software and all that. He may be well-known in some circles but may believe he is much more well-known than he actually is. The biggest problem with his predictions is that a lot of his predictions of future progress depends on his theory of entropy and the Law of Accelerating Returns. However, this theory is never rigorously defined or proved (although there are some intuitive aspects to it). Thus his assumption of ever-increasing rates of progress has a basis in the past march of progress, but not in his "Law". Although I agree with him that technological progress will continue, I do not think it will be at the pace he says it will, nor is it as inexorable or necessarily exponential, as he maintains. For instance, his predictions on quantum computers and nanotechnology all seem extremely fanciful to me. His predictions are thus far too optimistic, and, therefore, also too pessimistic (the doomsday scenarios are less likely if the underlying technology making it possible is less likely). He realizes many in the past have been poor prognosticators, yet somehow thinks he can outdo the others. It's a valiant effort, and he certainly has the credentials and experience and mind to be among the best, but the future is inherently unknowable, and I suspect his vision, while better than most others, is wildly off base. For instance, he is too optimistic in assuming all the new gadgets will be adopted on a wide scale just around the corner, e.g. in 2009 and 2019. I know too many people who still have 25-year-old black-and-white TVs with rabbit ears to think that all this new stuff will be in place as quickly as he thinks: there is a lot of inertia and reluctance to give up the things we have that already work. Change will happen, but I believe much more slowly than he predicts, and I do not know if it will ever get to the point he predicts it will be in 100 years. All in all, quite worth reading, and I admire his intelligence, energy, imagination, and optimism, as well as his recognition that whatever is going to happen is going to happen, and there's not too much we can do about it.
Rating: 
Summary: Kurzweil on the Evolution of Evolution
Review: Suppose that, in 1899, someone had published a book predicting that in a hundred years we would be living, on average, into our mid seventies; communicating instantaneously around the world; hurtling through the air in metal birds; watching theatre on little boxes; visiting other planets; and creating new lifeforms in our laboratories. Practical, no-nonsense readers of such a book would doubtless have concluded that the author was a lunatic. Yet here we are. Given the viral nature of memes; the creative cross-fertilization that occurs when people are connected; and the exponential growth of technology in general and of connectedness in particular, it is reasonable to conclude that we ain't seen nothin yet. Take a glimpse at Ray Kurzweil's vision of our future, and you'll be inclined to agree. There will be people who think that Kurzweil has written a crazy book, but from the perspective of our descendants a hundred years from now, the book might not seem crazy enough. Kurzweil has the insight to recognize that we are creating technologies that will change everything, utterly. Imagine a world in which you can plug in extra processing power or memory, in which you can download to your mind many lifetimes of knowledge and experience, in which consciousness can be shared, in which you can experience what it is like to be your spouse or what it is like to be a bat. Imagine a world in which you will not have to die. The imaginations of science fiction writers pale in comparison to what real science has in store for us, and Kurzweil has given us a sneak peek at some of the most profound possibilities. On two fronts-computer science and genetics-we are taking charge of our own evolution. Kurzweil deals skillfully (and entertainingly) with the former. To my knowledge, the definitive popular exposition of the latter has yet to be written. Computer science and recombinant DNA technology will soon give us the power to make our evolution depend on memes (our cultural creations, our ideas and artifacts) rather than on genes. Memes evolve exponentially because, unlike genes, they do encode acquired characteristics, so in the very near future, it is likely that our descendants will be as far removed from us as we are from sponges, much less Australopithecus afarensis. The inevitable merging of our minds with those of the machines that we create will change our basic ontological situation-what it is like to be us and what experiences are possible. This is Kurzweil's theme. I know of no other writer who has seen more clearly that with the emergence of these technologies for controling its own evolution, life on earth is entering an entirely new phase. Kurzweil's timetables might be a little off, but it is hard for me to imagine that the bizarre futures that he foresees will not come to pass. The Age of Spiritual Machines is one of those books (like Herb Simon's The Sciences of the Artificial or Marvin Minsky's The Society of Mind) that no thinking person should miss. It is more than simply a masterful synthesis and projection of current technological trends. It is a brave, bold work that cannot fail to shake you up. I hope that this book will be the beginning of a public dialogue about what we want to be and to become.
Rating: 
Summary: This book worth nothing
Review: I spend 3 hours in the book store browsing the book. The only part which is interesting is the history of computing. Even that, you can get from history books. He spend most of his time perdicting the future. Do we really need another so call guru to tell us the future. Even if you think you do , get a ture guru's book like Nicholas Negroponte's Being Digital. Is Kurzweil trying to perdict the future or is he trying to change the future? Clearly, he has done neither. I wonder how is his AI company doing?
Rating:
Summary: Consciousness-expanding Book!
Review: This book is changing the way I look at technology and evolution. Highly inspiring and exciting. Not for the meek, however. It can get technical and deep. Buts its worth a good slow read. I'm enjoying taking my time with it...
Rating:
Summary: The law of accelerating returns
Review: Good on the details, good on overall perspective, good on insider insight, Kurzweil properly transforms the tired topic of machine intelligence into a thrillingly broad expose of the near future. His discussion of what he calls "the Law of Accelerating Returns" (Moore's Law is a current case) is especially valuable.
Rating: 
Summary: A fascinating picture of life in the next century
Review: As I have looked at my grandfather's life (he's 80 now), he went from riding horse-drawn carriages to driving cars, riding in airplanes and watching routine shuttle launches, I've often thought that I wouldn't see such dramatic changes as my grandfather has. But if Kurzweil is right, by the end of the next century, life will be almost totally different than today. So different that it would be nearly incomprehensible to anyone taking an 80-year nap. Kurzweil calls this the Law of Accelerating Returns, and claims that, short of complete annihilation of the species, there is nothing we can do to stop or even slow it. Anyway, this is a fascinating portrait of life what life may be like in the next century (most of you reading this, Kurzweil says, will live to see the things predicted come to pass) by a fascinating person. I'm not qualified to comment on whether the scenarios he predicts are really plausible, but it's certainly interesting. By 2099, humanity has effectively acheived immortality. If you like this book, I'd suggest Eric Drexler's two less-technical books (Engines of Creation and Unbounding the Future) as well. Nanosystems is a bit over my head.
Rating:
Summary: Half a story about the future of the man/machine interface
Review: Ray Kurzweil has written a fascinating account of the extrapolation of Moore's Law to the breaking point and beyond. However, what he understands about the digital world he misses in the world of the mind. He does not address the "how" of information processing in the brain. Seduced by the complexity of neural physiology and the analog in the computer world, he does not even speculate on how the human brain with a processor with one thousandth the processing power of the early PCs can handle millions of bits of information let alone original thought. Most neural physiologists and psychiatrists realize that the conscious part of the brain processes only about 24 bits per second from the millions of bits the senses present. While I enjoyed the speculation of Kurzweil, he fails to address the most basic of questions - How does the brain do it? What does a thought look like and where is it in the brain? How do you build a memory and where is it? Can I physically find a memory in the brain? Reading Kurzweil's book with Pinker's How the Mind Works, Penrose's Shadows of the Mind, any of Dennett's efforts on consciousness, and Douglas Hoffstader's Godel, Escher, Bach, would give the reader some perspective on what lies ahead in the man/machine interface. John Ellingson Madison, WI
Rating:
Summary: Should be 0 stars; but this machine doesn't allow that.
Review: There is very little science in this book. It is really about Kurzweil's ego. He frequently implies his software is the future of computing. His "most significant event" for 1999 is the publication of this book. Such self serving hype is unforgivable. Predictions for 2009 are easily extrapolated from today's technology (probably because he will be around to be held accountable). Longer range predictions are pure SCIENCE FICTION. According to Kurzweil, humans will become borg-like drones, or even worse, extinct; replaced by self replicating machines. No way! There are some interesting bits of computing history, but even these facts are distorted to promote Kurzweil's agenda. Save your money. Pulp science fiction has more integrity than this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Immortality at Last
Review: Ray Kurzweil's book is a real stunner. He predicts that in the fairly near future people will be half-human, half-machine. In four decades computers will be smarter than we are. Their software will imitate our brains so well that you won't know whether it's a person or machine your dealing with on the phone or internet. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a big disappointment to many early backers, but that's because they expected too much too soon, according to Raymond Kurzweil, AI guru and author of THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES (Viking, January 1999), his third book. Kurzweil doesn't care much about expert systems such as those spawned by Edward Feigenbaum: they're useful, he says, but limited. He's more interested in finding a way to "reverse engineer" the human brain so that we can download everything about ourselves -- our memories, our dreams, our personalities -- into a computer, a process he calls "reinstantiation." Immortality at last. The line between machines and people will blur even further as we age and we'll be inserting machines into people to replace aging or an inadequate body and mind functions. Just as artificial hips now restore human body functions, so too will neural implants enhance our hearing, vision and memory: Kurzweil, 50, is not just a dreamer. Over the past 25 years he has built and sold four companies. His first Kurzweil Computer Products, built a reading machine for the blind and was bought by Xerox. One of its first customers was muscician Stevie Wonder, whose friendship with Kurzweil led to the development of computerized music synthesizers. An upcoming project is a program for fund managers creating an artificial intelligent financial analyst that outperforms humans. "This technology is going to be huge," he says.
Rating:
Summary: Additional praise for Ray Kurzweil
Review: Kurzweil lays out a scenario that might seem like science fiction if it weren't coming from a proven entreprenuer. Within twenty years, he predicts, computers costing $1,000 will have roughly the same intelligence as the human brain. These artificial minds will be able to talk with us, recognize us when we come home and keep us company when we're lonely. Within an additional 10 years, by 2029, a $1,000 compuer brain will have the power of a thousand human minds. These machines will be so smart, Kurzweil predicts, they'll start claiming consciousness -- the digital equivalent of cogito ergo sum. He thinks courts will recognize that machine minds will have certain inalienable rights -- an issue even Star Fleet Command didn't have to confront until 2365! "The specter is not yet here," he writes, adding: "The emergence in the early 21st century of a new form of intelligence on Earth that can compete with, and ultimately exceed that of human inteligence, will be a development of greater import than any of the events that have shaped human history." -- San Francisco Chronicle 10/24/98
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