Rating: 
Summary: A mindblowing "radar update" of what's to come.
Review: This book is an exhilarating glimpse into the future of technology, with an emphasis on when and how it could ultimately affect us: "us" as vulnerable injury prone biology, us as students, us as workers, us as socialites, and perhaps most interestingly, us as mortals.Hard science in plain terms, Kurzweil stitches in humor and optimism to keep the reading fun, but never sacrifices the basic ambition of this book; I believe that ambition is to share his well-founded exitement about the likilihood that "just around the corner" (owing to the laws of accelerating return) things are going to get real interesting, and really strange. While I note that plenty of reviews take issue with the pace of change Kurzweil predicts, few dispute the likilihood technologies outlined in the book (Nanotechnological production, AI, man-made/machine-made alternatives to biology such as prosthetics that work as well or better than nature designed) will ever come about, or take issue with the myriad ways in which they will have a profound effect on our individual lives, society, and the world at large. Kurzweil is an optimist, but not a blind one. He was the principal developer of the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition. Many of his tech-prophecies have come true, and he has well earned respect in the scientific community. Even if he's somewhat "off" on timing, or the exact embodiment these technologies will take, just throwing one of your neural legs over the sweeping impact these technologies could usher in makes this book more than a worthwhile read. Christian Hunter
Santa Barbara, California
Rating: 
Summary: Dreaming about the big upload
Review: Homo Sapiens - it was fun as long as it lasted. Enter Robo Sapiens. Humanity is doomed and is going to be replaced ! In Kurzwells words:"Within 100 years there will be a strong trend toward the merger of human thinking with the world of machine intelligence. Most conscious entities will end up having no permanant physical presence". Starting from Moores law of ever more powerful computers, Kurzweil takes us through the steps towards the big upload, where human brains are scanned and uploaded as software to conscious computers. Starting with direct neural pathways for high bandwidth connections between the human brain and intelligent computers - the final step where the brain is moved inside the computer wont seem so immense. And obviously everybody will want the to take the steps before, where perception and interpretation are enhanced, as well as memory and reasoning etc. Kurzweil quotes Arthur C. Clarke: "When a scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong". If I wasn't convinced before - I am now, after reading Kurzweils book - we are just waiting for the upload ! And considering the Clarke quote I wont pay to much attention to those who will be sceptical of Kurzweils claims. The upload story is reason enough for reading the book. But the book gives more. I.e. a good introduction to a lot of the "almost present day" technologies, that definitely will become real within the next 10 to 20 years. Plus, a number of good insights into the highly interesting subject "what is intelligence". -Simon
Rating:
Summary: A must-read
Review: Ray Kurzweil has me convinced. I'm a believer, a Kurzweilite. His descriptions of what the future has in store for us are so compelling, so arresting, I can't wait for the next 100 years. (And he has me convinced that I will live to see them.)
Bring on the Age of Spiritual Machines!
Rating: 
Summary: Kooky but cool
Review: Kurzweil describes how the law of accelerating returns will allow us create AI and become immortal within decades. Unfortunately for all of us, increasing clock speed and transitor density doesnt create intelligence. Predicting when a computer will be able to search the chess game tree fast enough to beat Kasparov is far different from predicting when a computer will be able to simulate a human brain.
That being said, this books is still a good read because these innovations will occur one day (assuming the law of accelerating returns doesnt get us killed which is actually pretty likely), but Kurzweil fails by wanting to believe that these AI breakthroughs will happen in his lifetime.
Rating:
Summary: Imaginative thinking
Review: If you could go back in time 100 years and talk to Henry Ford and give him a description of how the automobile has taken over places such as Los Angeles, Mr. Ford might tell you: "You're mad. It's only a horseless carriage. You've been reading too much Wells and Verne." At the start of the automobile age, probably few were thinking about how the car would change our cities and our lives. Few would have imagined how we would sacrifice the quality of our lives, how Big Auto and Big Oil would come to dominate our culture.
We are now in a similar position with regards to the the computer. Kurzweil makes it clear the the changes that the computer will bring to humanity are only beginning, and gives us a detailed and very believable synopsis of where we are heading. Will those changes be beneficial or not? Few in power are asking that question, as we madly stampede ahead, as we blindly consider all technology to be progress.
Maybe if some in 1900 had thought ahead as to what the automobile would do to us, we wouldn't have ended up with such unlivable places as Los Angeles. Maybe if enough people read books like Kurzweils (and his is the best I've read on the subject), we'll see where we are headed, and we can ask the right questions and can better control our future.
Rating:
Summary: Where are the people we love?
Review: I will not get into the whole question of whether or not machines as of yet show any signs of real self- consciousness or a ' spiritual life ' as we know it.
I would just like to make one point which it seems to me raises questions about the validity of the whole ' spiritual machine' enterprise.
We are what we are on the basis of our connection with, our need and love for other human beings. A ' spiritual machine' seems to me something like an ' individual's projection' for his own isolated self. It seems to me that the whole idea being set forth here shows a very small and limited conception of what the human situation and condition is, and what it means to really care for others.
Rating: 
Summary: The Age of Kurzweil Inc.
Review: I started the book quite excited and simpathetic to Kurzweils position, I came away feeling skeptical and that I had been ripped off by a philosophical lightweight.
I have long been interested in AI and more recently reading about an idea called the singularity on the Internet: the idea that technology, specifically computing power, is improving so rapidly that were will soon live in a world of superintelligent AI. The average 2004 computer may have the equivilent intellectual capacity of a mouse, but by 2020 (or 2030 or 2010) a computer will have the processing power of a human brain, with capacities way beyond the human brain shortly thereafter.
The manifesto of accelerating returns reaches its most detailed expression in The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil.
Most of the book is philosophy of mind, something I am familiar with having taken philosophy of mind to Masters level. The basis with which Kurtzweil argues is called physicalism: the belief that all processes are ultimately physical processes. Thus all states in humans are due to the states of their cells, specifically neurons (hormones are not mentioned: perhaps because they are too messy). The brain is thus a kind of computer.
I was surprised he did not cite the bible of neural physicalism, Churchlands' Neurophilosophy (a much better book by the way).
There is a branch of AI that seeks to model computational processes after neurons called neural networking or connectionism. Software has been developed in attempt to have computers function in ways analogous to a human brain. Experiments in this area have proven fruitious, it is possible to teach neural networks to recognise patterns and learn in remarkably human way. Kurtzweil has examples of computer generated poetry and even painting that defy judgement that it is machine made. I found this section of the book interesting. Since computers are able to do so much that we previously though to be exclusively human, Kurzweil argues, we can extrapolate this trend into the future to find there will be (virtually) nothing a human can do that can't be done by a machine. If a machine has as much processing power as a human, can do all a human can, its spiritual status is something like that of a human. It will have a mind because mind, according to physicalism-connectionism, is a byproduct of complex computational ability.
This is a well known position in philosophy of mind called epiphenominalism.
Although Kurtzweil doesnt use the term, his entire book is based around it. I was astonished to find that the entire basis for Kurtzweil's position was a citing of all the things computers can do that are considered intelligent in humans. While this may be a basis for an argument that machines could be considered intelligent, it says nothing on the possibility of machine consciousness or spirituality. It is just assumed they will follow. Now I'm not saying they will not follow, it could happen IF physicalism AND connectionism AND epiphenominalism were true. But Kurtzweil never enters into any arguments about this, instead he spends much of the book providing evidence for the ongoing increasing processing power of computers.
Yes, Ray, carbon nanotube computing will provide the power of the worlds current fastest computer, the NEC Earth Simulator, in a cubic millimetre. Great! But so what?
Kurtzweil uses the time honoured method of developing an argument ignoring the strongest objections whilst deftly demolishing the straw men, or minor ones.
I found this book remarkably lacking in any sense of spirituality. Ray's trinity appears to be cybersex, self-promotion and money. His vision of the future is mainly through an imaginary dialogue with an imaginary female who has billions of dollars (but doesnt feel that rich - what else is new!) and some form of nanoholodeck or other, which she uses for sex (presumably with Ray).
Ultimately it feels like a big promo for Ray Kurzweil Enterprises Incorporated. Lacking a direct connection with the spiritual world, is he waiting for the robots to provide it? If you're quite geeky, drink lots of coffee and never tire of stories of the latest pentium benchmarks (ie. computers going FASTER FASTER FASTER!) you may enjoy this book. I was sorely disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: A mindblowing "radar update" of what's to come.
Review: This book is an exhilarating glimpse into the future of technology, with an emphasis on when and how it could ultimately affect us: "us" as vulnerable injury prone biology, us as students, us as workers, us as socialites, and perhaps most interestingly, us as mortals. Hard science in plain terms, Kurzweil stitches in humor and optimism to keep the reading fun, but never sacrifices the basic ambition of this book; I believe that ambition is to share his well-founded exitement about the likilihood that "just around the corner" (owing to the laws of accelerating return) things are going to get real interesting, and really strange. While I note that plenty of reviews take issue with the pace of change Kurzweil predicts, few dispute the likilihood technologies outlined in the book (Nanotechnological production, AI, man-made/machine-made alternatives to biology such as prosthetics that work as well or better than nature designed) will ever come about, or take issue with the myriad ways in which they will have a profound effect on our individual lives, society, and the world at large. Kurzweil is an optimist, but not a blind one. He was the principal developer of the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition. Many of his tech-prophecies have come true, and he has well earned respect in the scientific community. Even if he's somewhat "off" on timing, or the exact embodiment these technologies will take, just throwing one of your neural legs over the sweeping impact these technologies could usher in makes this book more than a worthwhile read. Christian Hunter
Santa Barbara, California
Rating:
Summary: Intelligent & Entertaining!
Review: Ray Kurzweil's Age of Spiritual Machines is an enthralling look at the future of computers and technology. While much of the book is speculative, Kurzweil both entertains and educates as he explains his claims about the future. A thought-provoking read for anyone interested in computers & technology.
Rating:
Summary: Take the predictions with a grain of salt, however...
Review: ...the ideas in this book are highly stimulating and fascinating. It is basically a summary of all the wants of futurism--nanotechnology, AIs, quantum computers, holistic evolution. But instead of finding these theories spread over numerous books, Kurzweil brings them all together as emanating from one conclusion: evolution is increasing on its own order, and thus speeding up. Our technology is a part of the evolutionary process, and should not be feared. How realistic are these visions? Foglets (nanotech clouds that can form and reshape into any object), scanning our brains into robots or computers so we can be immortal, quantum computers...Nanotech has some fundamental problems to work through, A.) how to dispose of heat and B.) that funky thing called quantum mechanics. The brain is ludicrously complex (neurons have thousands of connections), and the notion of simply scanning it into a computer and having one's memories recreated inside a new robotic shell is a bit far fetched. Neuroscience is still a hazy business, see The Undiscovered Mind and The Mind and the Brain (from different Points of View, the former Freudian, the latter a proponent of Free Will). If our memories are no longer existent in the new shell, at least the memories as we remember them (I know this is getting into "loaded question" territory), does the self remain the same? Is it the same "person", a man of meat becomes a man of machine who remembers his "old" past differently? Nonetheless, this is a worthwhile book on where humanity may be going to, and it would probably help give you some ideas if you're a wannabe science fiction writer. You can also drop some of these concepts on your date and wow her w/ your insight and speculatory nature. One complaint that I have about the book is I didn't care for all the quasi-conversations the author manufactures in the beginning of the latter chapters. I started skipping them.
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