Customer Reviews

Charlie Rose with Anthony Fauci, Nils Daulaire, Jeffery Taubenberger & Irwin Redlener; Ray Kurzweil (November 1, 2005)

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Kurzweil speaks about his new book, "The Singularity is Near". He speaks about the idea that Mankind is soon to come to a moment of great transformation. At this moment those 'machines' which are the product of human intelligence will have such vast powers that they will in effect be , as I understand what he is saying, the new controlling power. Mankind as we are presently biologically constituted will simply not have the 'intelligence' to keep up with these ' spiritual machines'. How this will play out in terms of the role, the function, which remains to humanity is not clear. Kurzweil , and here too I am not sure I understood him, may also suggest some kind of future symbiosis between man and machine. And I believe he does refer to transformations which have already occurred in which human beings have absorbed machine- components and been aided in various areas of mental functioning.
Kurzweil is known as one of those who has best foreseen coming trends in information- technology. Rose twice hypes the fact that Bill Gates calls him one of our 'geniuses'. He is not however a particularly brilliant speaker, and his 'mankind shaking statements' do not come with great wit or verbal brilliance. But the ideas are deep and disturbing. And his track- record as major inventor and seer in the technological areas means that he has to be listened to very seriously.
Perhaps our future as he suggests will be spent amusing ourselves in various virtual realities.
What a pity.
I myself sort of like humanity and wonder what we will do without ourselves.