Rating: 
Summary: Accelerating numbers of people are reading this book Read it
Review: Good book. I don't remember the specifics, because I read it when it came out, which was a few years ago. But I'm continually recommending it to people. Along with another book in a simlar vein, by author Daniel Crevier, called AI. Which is one of my favourite books of all time.
Ray writes about what has happened in technology during human history, touching upon particularly important examples of improved technology.
He then extrapolates from this, the idea that technology is getter better and better, faster and faster. And hence that some important changes are going to take place soon, which may or may not (depending on how technology is used,) lead to some important quality of life milestones being reached by humankind.
Third world milestones, such as substantially reduced world hunger and reduced number of people who don't have access to other basic needs like clothing, basic medicine and shelter.
And Milestones for the general population, such as substantially improved day to day health (technology which significantly reduces obesity and improves muscle and skin tone and flexability and significantly speeds up healing etc.) and substantially longer lifespan.
The bulk of the book and it's key strength is in taking recent technologies that we are familar with today and showing directly how they will lead to much better technologies in the near future.
This book did this very well for it's time. Since then a cornucopia of authors have written similar books which draw from this one, so it is becoming slightly dated (which you would expect a book to become, quickly, in our accelerating age, no?)
Still, Highly Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Nano-bots R Us
Review: One of the most rejuvenating books I've read in a long time! I was on a high for months - contemplating the relationship between man and machine and the future of consciousness. For me, the author's vision of the future is highly inspirational for some strange reason.A few of my favorite topics are covered in the book - history (of the future), computers and the virtual world, science fiction and the possible future of mankind. Kurzweil's ideas are mind blowing and they challenge the intellect on many levels. His systematic approach to the potential future of computers and machines is the best I've come across. I think he omitted one thing from his calculations: that human intellect & understanding also have a Moore-like law and human understanding will jump in parallel with the progress of the machines, maybe a bit slower, so 2020 is a bit soon as the last date to switch of the machines. I read Vernon Vinge's A Fire upon the Deep after Spiritual Machines and found it a relevant breather and maybe an implementation of the theme, albeit in a make-believe sci-fi world. Spiritual Machines changes your daily outlook.
Rating:
Summary: AI sneaks up on you
Review: I was delighted to see Kurzweil describe the process by which AI appears to sneak up on you. It mirrors my personal experience. Back in the 70s I worked on a computer program called Optow, to design high voltage transmission lines. At first, the designs it produced were laughable. Each day I worked on it, the designs got better and better. One day it got as good as a human. Two weeks later it was designing lines 10% better than a human. Suddenly a design team of 50 engineers, most with masters degrees and PhDs were obsolete. The progress was steady, but the effect on the workers came overnight. I anticipate that this pattern will repeat. Millions of white collar workers will find themselves overnight unemployed as gradual advances in AI (Artificial Intelligence) reach the stage it is better than humans at task after task.
Rating: 
Summary: Thought Provoking, Though Narrow
Review: This book certainly puts forward some interesting ideas. It wasn't as convincing as I had hoped for, but I suppose you can't expect anyone to provide "sufficient proof" for their divinations. His is an opinion, not a proof, but as an opinion it is a very intriguing one at that. His tone has a hint of arrogance and condescension that I found annoying, but I suppose someone as successful as he has the right. I was also hoping for a little bit of ethics or philosophy, but there was none. He discusses the technology and its superficial social impact, but he does not analyse his predictions in terms of human behaviour, serious sociology, or even basic philosophy. One can only be an expert in so many things, however instead of acknowledging this void in his analysis, he goes on as though it plays no role. (With the attitude that: technology will come, people will accept it, everyone will benefit, it will be good.) He assumes that technology in a capitalist environment will automatically lead to benefit, and that everyone will gain and share equally in this benefit. He often comes across as naive in these regards. I will concede that perhaps I may be expecting too much, but the absence of a deeper analysis is nonetheless frustrating. His almost child-like optimism is reassuring in ways however, and certainly helps in dispelling the sense of doom that naturally comes over a person when reading such things. Perhaps machines won't be as cruel and greedy as we are, and perhaps they will make the world a better place. You never know. In conclusion, this book provides only technical insights and not many social ones - but it nonetheless succeeds in giving quite a large dose of information for one to think over. Well worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: Thought Provoking Predictions
Review: This is an enjoyable book by an intelligent author. I really enjoyed his writing style of speaking to the reader, rather than at the reader. I found the first section of the book to be a little bit slower than the second half, but this is only because the author is laying down the foundation of his future predictions found in the second half. The author is a little too quick to gloss over the potential evil uses of this technology, and at times seems to demonstrate, (through the use of fictional characters), his annoyance at those who want to slow down the march to a brave new world. The author's predictions are a little too upbeat for my tastes, but since it was published in 2000 and probably written 98-99, I forgive him for that. The sentiments of our future with technology expressed in this book seem to be a little bit dated, from a time before the hard economic times hit the US technology industry. Despite these minor points, I look forward to reading further writings by this author. His book is an excellent counterpoint to the doomsday views of our future expressed in movies like Terminator and Mad Max.
Rating: 
Summary: the optimist perspective
Review: There are two ways to look at the future: either rapid advances in technology are ultimately beneficial to society, or they're ultimately going to be what breaks society down. Kurzweil takes the former perspective in "Age of Spiritual Machines", and his single-minded, almost dogged optimism is what keeps this book from achieving greatness. The book is basically a list of Kurzweil's predictions for the future until around the year 2099. He doesn't give much in the way of supporting facts or dissenting opinions, except to offer his own theories, which are interesting but often fail to prove anything. He also predicts that once they pass the Turing Test, robots with highly advanced artificial intelligence will be accepted on the whole by human society without humans so much as batting an eye. What with the current Neo-Luddite movement and the growing suspicion of our reliance on technology, I can't imagine that happening as smoothly as Kurzweil predicts. The style of the book, however, is interesting, as Kurzweil presents it as a palette of information that can be read in any order. And even though his optimism sometimes clouds his judgement, it is still interesting to see his well-educated perspective on the future of a world where spiritual machines seem not only feasible, but inevitable. As long as it's taken with a grain of salt, "The Age of Spiritual Machines" is a thought-provoking, unusual read.
Rating:
Summary: Musings of an 'out-there' visionary
Review: Ray Kurzweil, as many will attest, is what one might call an 'out-there' visionary. His ideas are far from humble. Fortunately for the rest of us, this allows for some highly entertaining discussion on where, with all this technological progress, we may be headed. Luddites, prepare to be disappointed. This book most certainly does not portent a doomsday-end-of-the-world-apocalypse. The rest of use may rejoice; the future, at least according to Kurzweil, is bright. Especially if you're into out-of-body experiences... Entertaining as it might be, and perhaps even accurate, this book fails, quite miserably, to address the responsibility that technocrats are entrusted with. Kurzweil brushes this off by saying that the invisible hand of evolution will be sure to guide us in the right direction. Expect to take away from this book a bit of the currents in Artificial Intelligence and robotics; and a possibly 'happy' way for man and machine to co-exist in the otherwise media prounced doomed future. Can't wait.
Rating:
Summary: Not so fast, Ray
Review: In this book Kurzweil assumes that because nanotechnology means everything might be produced for free, it will be given away for the "benefit" of humanity. But when did capitalism - particularly in its American form - give anything away for free? Kurzweil is not an economist or a sociologist. He ignores entirely the proprietary aspects of the new technologies, of which he is likely to be both a creator and a beneficiary. Only the most optimistic will enjoy reading this book.
Rating: 
Summary: ONE EGREGIOUS ERROR.
Review: I bought The Age of Spiritual Machines for one reason alone: the use of the term "spiritual" in the title. Having read his earlier The Age of Intelligent Machines, I was curious about what the author could possibly mean by a "spiritual machine." What an onerous task it was! On page 6 Kurzweil tells us that in the near future computers vastly more intelligent than we are will "claim to have spiritual experiences," adding, "And people - those still using carbon-based neurons or otherwise - will believe them." After that initial mention of "spiritual," one is compelled to read to page 149 before the issue is ever raised again. The interval is filled with the kind of computational history that Kurzweil knows a great deal about and relates in well-written fashion but he adds little to the dreams about the future of machine intelligence set down decades ago by writers like Hans Moravec and Marvin Minsky. His own principal addition is certain "Laws" comparable to but somewhat more sophisticated that "Moore's Law," notably "The Law of Accelerating Returns: As order exponentially increases, time exponentially speeds up (that is, the time interval between salient events grows shorter as time passes.)" By his own testimony, his prior predictions about the exponential increase in computational power have been pretty good, so one can hardly quibble with him over his predictions - up to a point. Pages 261-280 consist of a Time Line beginning with the singularity before the Big Bang and ending with 2099 with the addition of an indeterminate date, "Some many millenniums hence . . ." when "Intelligent beings consider the fate of the Universe." I SUBMIT, HOWEVER, THAT ONE OF HIS PREDICTIONS IS SO EGREGRIOUSLY WRONG THAT IT FATALLY FLAWS THE BOOK. That is that by 2049 "Machines claim to be conscious. These claims are largely accepted." The flaw here is that no one has proposed any credible theory of how consciousness can be produced by the human brain, let alone by an artificial one. Kurzweil is accepting the assumption made by so may of his co-authors in The Age of Intelligent Machines, such as Daniel Dennett, Sherry Turkle, Douglas Hofstadter, Marvin Minsky, Seymour Papert, Edward Feigenbaum, Allen Newell, and George Gilder that given sufficient computational and memory power, consciousness will simply pop up like a bagel from the toaster. In all spiritual traditions, from most aboriginal religions to non-theistic Buddhism to Vedanta to neo-Platonism to the mysticism of the Abrahamic religions it is presumed that consciousness is primordial, not derivative from mindless matter. Furthermore, as I have pointed out in my books, The Mind Paradigm and The Android Myth, intelligence - the ability to solve problems - is not the same as thinking. Just examine the history of human thought or your own personal experience and you will realize that, however unconscious problem solving may be, no one has EVER devoted brainpower or computer power to anything that did not first appear as an anomaly in consciousness. Consciousness is what gives rise to awe and curiosity. There is no algorithm for curiosity, only algorithms to solve problems evoked by human curiosity. It is almost laughable when, in those 2 or 3 pages that Kurzweil devotes to machine spirituality, he seems to think that spirituality and sensuality are virtually synonymous, so he gives examples of virtual sex and various experiments in computer art and musical composition. What he fails to realize is that conscious human beings wrote the programs that allowed the computers to invent "art works" and "music" and that the creativity they displayed meant nothing to the computers but only to the conscious human beings that eventually looked at or heard the results. Finally, Kurzweil fails to realize that spirituality is in essence the very opposite of computation. In every ancient text from the Upanishads to The Cloud of Unknowing to Wayne Teasdale's The Mystic Heart, the Way of the Spirit is hindered, not helped, by the chatter of the computational mind.
Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking, Eye-opening
Review: Before reading this book, I hadn't really thought much about the consequences of Moores Law (the doubling of computer power every 18-24 months), nano-technology, and other trends. Kurzweil makes a believable case for the emergence of computers that are not only smarter than humans, but by the end of this century, a single computer will be smarter than billions of human beings combined. I think the most tenuous part of his argument is the notion that we will be able to map the human brain sufficiently to be able to download our minds into computers. But if he's right, we will become immortal, unimaginably intelligent super-beings. A mind-boggling but actually plausible picture of the future. This book will definitely open your eyes and get you thinking.
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