The Singularity Is Near
The Singularity Is Near

Author: Ray Kurzweil

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2005-09-22

Total Pages: 992

ISBN-13: 1101218886

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Celebrated futurist Ray Kurzweil, hailed by Bill Gates as “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence,” presents an “elaborate, smart, and persuasive” (The Boston Globe) view of the future course of human development. “Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.”—Los Angeles Times “Startling in scope and bravado.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “An important book.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer At the onset of the twenty-first century, humanity stands on the verge of the most transforming and thrilling period in its history. It will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity. While the social and philosophical ramifications of these changes will be profound, and the threats they pose considerable, The Singularity Is Near presents a radical and optimistic view of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of technological ingenuity and a genuinely inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny.

The Singularity Is Nearer
The Singularity Is Nearer

Author: Ray Kurzweil

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2024-06-25

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 0399562761

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AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTUAL PEOPLE IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE The noted inventor and futurist’s successor to his landmark book The Singularity Is Near explores how technology will transform the human race in the decades to come Since it was first published in 2005, Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near and its vision of an exponential future have spawned a worldwide movement. Kurzweil's predictions about technological advancements have largely come true, with concepts like AI, intelligent machines, and biotechnology now widely familiar to the public. In this entirely new book Ray Kurzweil brings a fresh perspective to advances toward the Singularity—assessing his 1999 prediction that AI will reach human level intelligence by 2029 and examining the exponential growth of technology—that, in the near future, will expand human intelligence a millionfold and change human life forever. Among the topics he discusses are rebuilding the world, atom by atom with devices like nanobots; radical life extension beyond the current age limit of 120; reinventing intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud; how exponential technologies are propelling innovation forward in all industries and improving all aspects of our well-being such as declining poverty and violence; and the growth of renewable energy and 3-D printing. He also considers the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including such topics of current controversy as how AI will impact employment and the safety of autonomous cars, and "After Life" technology, which aims to virtually revive deceased individuals through a combination of their data and DNA. The culmination of six decades of research on artificial intelligence, The Singularity Is Nearer is Ray Kurzweil’s crowning contribution to the story of this science and the revolution that is to come.

The Technological Singularity
The Technological Singularity

Author: Murray Shanahan

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2015-08-07

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 0262527804

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The idea of technological singularity, and what it would mean if ordinary human intelligence were enhanced or overtaken by artificial intelligence. The idea that human history is approaching a “singularity”—that ordinary humans will someday be overtaken by artificially intelligent machines or cognitively enhanced biological intelligence, or both—has moved from the realm of science fiction to serious debate. Some singularity theorists predict that if the field of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop at its current dizzying rate, the singularity could come about in the middle of the present century. Murray Shanahan offers an introduction to the idea of the singularity and considers the ramifications of such a potentially seismic event. Shanahan's aim is not to make predictions but rather to investigate a range of scenarios. Whether we believe that singularity is near or far, likely or impossible, apocalypse or utopia, the very idea raises crucial philosophical and pragmatic questions, forcing us to think seriously about what we want as a species. Shanahan describes technological advances in AI, both biologically inspired and engineered from scratch. Once human-level AI—theoretically possible, but difficult to accomplish—has been achieved, he explains, the transition to superintelligent AI could be very rapid. Shanahan considers what the existence of superintelligent machines could mean for such matters as personhood, responsibility, rights, and identity. Some superhuman AI agents might be created to benefit humankind; some might go rogue. (Is Siri the template, or HAL?) The singularity presents both an existential threat to humanity and an existential opportunity for humanity to transcend its limitations. Shanahan makes it clear that we need to imagine both possibilities if we want to bring about the better outcome.

The Coming Singularity
The Coming Singularity

Author: Gary A. Freitas

Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers

Published: 2022-08-31

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1638291624

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As we approach 2050, it is projected that human consciousness will encounter a superior intelligence for the very first time: artificial machine intelligence. It is important for us to understand the evolutionary impact of this event, but also that we are being altered from the inside out for the singularity to arise. Are we ready? Will we be adaptive? How will we change? The Coming Singularity explores the psychological impact of the changes coming our way and the many adaptations we will have to make. We are transitioning to a world of one degree of separation, with only the illusion of privacy, autonomy and anonymity. All of us are undergoing a transition to an electronic identity, one that can reach back and change the real you. The question going forward will be, who is the real you? A cluster of psychological symptoms are evolving from our technology interface––Identity Diffusion. Its key feature is the de-realization of life. Direct brain-to-technology interfaces will soon render our brains an open-source forum. We need to discuss who is in there and why! The impact of e-technology on human identity will be profound, but it is also a prerequisite for machine intelligence to arise. We need to discuss this. We humans reside in complex, dynamical networks. The goal of artificial intelligence will be to evolve and stabilize these networks. And we may not be the priority.

The Computer and the Brain
The Computer and the Brain

Author: John Von Neumann

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 116

ISBN-13: 9780300084733

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This book represents the views of one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century on the analogies between computing machines and the living human brain. John von Neumann concludes that the brain operates in part digitally, in part analogically, but uses a peculiar statistical language unlike that employed in the operation of man-made computers. This edition includes a new foreword by two eminent figures in the fields of philosophy, neuroscience, and consciousness.

Singularity Rising
Singularity Rising

Author: James D. Miller

Publisher: BenBella Books

Published: 2012-10-16

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1936661659

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In Ray Kurzweil's New York Times bestseller The Singularity is Near, the futurist and entrepreneur describes the Singularity, a likely future utterly different than anything we can imagine. The Singularity is triggered by the tremendous growth of human and computing intelligence that is an almost inevitable outcome of Moore's Law. Since the book's publication, the coming of the Singularity is now eagerly anticipated by many of the leading thinkers in Silicon Valley, from PayPal mastermind Peter Thiel to Google co-founder Larry Page. The formation of the Singularity University, and the huge popularity of the Singularity website kurzweilai.com, speak to the importance of this intellectual movement. But what about the average person? How will the Singularity affect our daily lives—our jobs, our families, and our wealth? Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World focuses on the implications of a future society faced with an abundance of human and artificial intelligence. James D. Miller, an economics professor and popular speaker on the Singularity, reveals how natural selection has been increasing human intelligence over the past few thousand years and speculates on how intelligence enhancements will shape civilization over the next forty years. Miller considers several possible scenarios in this coming singularity: • A merger of man and machine making society fantastically wealthy and nearly immortal • Competition with billions of cheap AIs drive human wages to almost nothing while making investors rich • Businesses rethink investment decisions to take into account an expected future period of intense creative destruction • Inequality drops worldwide as technologies mitigate the cognitive cost of living in impoverished environments • Drugs designed to fight Alzheimer's disease and keep soldiers alert on battlefields have the fortunate side effect of increasing all of their users' IQs, which, in turn, adds a percentage points to worldwide economic growth Singularity Rising offers predictions about the economic implications for a future of widely expanding intelligence and practical career and investment advice on flourishing on the way to the Singularity.

Ethics and Emerging Technologies
Ethics and Emerging Technologies

Author: Ronald Sandler

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-04-30

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 1137349085

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First and only undergraduate textbook that addresses the social and ethical issues associated with a wide array of emerging technologies, including genetic modification, human enhancement, geoengineering, robotics, virtual reality, artificial meat, neurotechnologies, information technologies, nanotechnology, sex selection, and more.

The Singularity Survival Guide: How to Get on the Good Side of Your Future Robot Overlords
The Singularity Survival Guide: How to Get on the Good Side of Your Future Robot Overlords

Author: Peter Clarke

Publisher: Independently Published

Published: 2019-03-27

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9781798981542

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Are you prepared to meet your future robot overlords? According to futurist Ray Kurzweil, we only have until 2045 to prepare for the singularity-the moment AI achieves human-level general intelligence. That's where The Singularity Survival Guide comes in. How will you greet this new form of higher intelligence? With a simple handshake? And what are you going to do if the AI is evil? How will you fight against it? Find the answers to these and many other questions in this survival guide-before it's too late."The technological singularity has officially been treated to a full-scale parody, and it's even more comical and irreverent than it sounds."- Zoltan Istvan, Founder of the Transhumanist Party"A timely satire, even if humor doesn't stand a chance of saving us from the sort of superintelligence Clarke envisions." - Arif Khan, Chief Marketing Officer, SingularityNET Published by Logos Literature.

Ten Years to the Singularity If We Really Really Try
Ten Years to the Singularity If We Really Really Try

Author: Ben Goertzel

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781505550825

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Ray Kurzweil has projected the date for a Technological Singularity as 2045. AI researcher Ben Goertzel believes it could potentially happen much sooner, if appropriate attention and resources are focused on the right R&D projects. What current technologies are most likely to lead to the rapid advent of powerful Artificial General Intelligence systems? What impact will the advent of such technologies have upon human life? What philosophical, scientific and spiritual ideas should be deployed to explore such questions? How probable are Terminator type outcomes, versus friendlier scenarios where advanced artificial intelligences play a beneficent role to humanity and other sentiences? What should be our top priorities now, looking forward to a radically different AI-centric future? This book gathers together essays that Ben Goertzel wrote during the period 2009-2011, for H+ Magazine and other periodicals, which explore these issues from various directions. Each essay is presented along with a brief personal introduction discussing the context in which the essay was written, and reviewing relevant developments from the period 2012-2014.

Fantastic Voyage
Fantastic Voyage

Author: Ray Kurzweil

Publisher: Rodale

Published: 2005-09-27

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 0452286670

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A leading scientist and an expert on human longevity explain how new discoveries in the fields of genomics, biotechnology, and nanotechnology could radically extend the human life expectancy and enhance physical and mental abilities, and introduce a cutting-edge program designed to enhance the immune system and slow the aging process on a cellular level. Reprint.