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The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence Hardcover – January 1, 1999

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 504 ratings

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The creator of the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the Kurzweil synthesizer, and the Windows 95 voice-recognition program offers logical and readable forecasts about twenty-first century technology. 65,000 first printing. Tour.
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

According to the law of accelerating returns, explains futurist Kurzweil (The Age of Intelligent Machines), technological gains are made at an exponential rate. In his utopian vision of the 21st century, our lives will change not merely incrementally but fundamentally. The author is the inventor of reading and speech-recognition machines, among other technologies, but he isn't much of a writer. Using clunky prose and an awkward dialogue with a woman from the future, he sets up the history of evolution and technology and then offers a whirlwind tour through the next 100 years. Along the way, he makes some bizarre predictions. If Kurzweil has it right, in the next few decades humans will download books directly into their brains, run off with virtual secretaries and exist "as software," as we become more like computers and computers become more like us. Other projections?e.g., that most diseases will be reversible or preventable?are less strange but seem similarly Panglossian. Still others are more realizable: human-embedded computers will track the location of practically anyone, at any time. More problematic is Kurzweil's self-congratulatory tone. Still, by addressing (if not quite satisfactorily) the overpowering distinction between intelligence and consciousness, and by addressing the difference between a giant database and an intuitive machine, this book serves as a very provocative, if not very persuasive, view of the future from a man who has studied and shaped it. B&w illustrations. Agent, Loretta Barrett; foreign rights sold in the U.K., Germany, Italy and Spain; simultaneous Penguin audio; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

With the coming of the millennium, there is no shortage of predictions about what the next century will hold. Inventor, computer scientist, and futurist Kurzweil (The Age of Intelligent Machines, LJ 6/1/91) has produced a vision of the 21st century in which he predicts that a $1000 personal computer will match the computing speed and capacity of the human brain by around the year 2020. But Kurzweil does more than simply prognosticate about the future?he provides a blueprint for the next stage of human evolution, in which we will begin to develop computers more intelligent than ourselves. Then we must ask ourselves whether these new thinking machines are indeed conscious entities. This superb work is a thoughtful melding of technology, philosophy, ethics, and humanism. Highly recommended.
-?Joe J. Accardi, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Viking Adult (January 1, 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0670882178
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0670882175
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.55 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.36 x 1.35 x 9.54 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 504 ratings

About the author

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Ray Kurzweil
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Ray Kurzweil is a world class inventor, thinker, and futurist, with a thirty-five-year track record of accurate predictions. He has been a leading developer in artificial intelligence for 61 years – longer than any other living person. He was the principal inventor of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, omni-font optical character recognition, print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, text-to-speech synthesizer, music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition software. Ray received a Grammy Award for outstanding achievement in music technology; he is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He has written five best-selling books including The Singularity Is Near and How To Create A Mind, both New York Times best sellers, and Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine, winner of multiple young adult fiction awards. His forthcoming book, The Singularity Is Nearer, will be released June 25, 2024. He is a Principal Researcher and AI Visionary at Google.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
504 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book insightful and thought-provoking. They describe it as easy to read and not too technical. The book is described as interesting and provocative, making for compelling reading. Readers praise the author's writing style and narration. However, some feel the material is outdated.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

34 customers mention "Insight"28 positive6 negative

Customers find the book's insights powerful and influential. They appreciate the author's ability to explain complex technical issues in clear language. The book is described as interesting, thought-provoking, and a must-read for anyone interested in technology and the future.

"...I think that this is an important book that everyone should be familiar with, particularly the dire end of MOSHs (Mostly Original Substrate Humans.)..." Read more

"Written in 1999, this book is very comprehensive and generally right in its predictions...." Read more

"...These are powerful ideas...." Read more

"...Thankfully though, the author remains optimistic, and predicts events and technologies that would make today's computer scientists drool with..." Read more

34 customers mention "Readability"30 positive4 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and understand. They appreciate the author's thoughtful, well-researched, and clear prose.

"...His timeline in the appendix is excellent, and it is worth skipping to it first, before tackling the text...." Read more

"...not left behind, but instead stand chin-to-chin with the robust, brilliant machines that have created...." Read more

"...It helps to know a little physics, but his prose is clear and easy to understand...." Read more

"...Still, this is a wonderful read and The Amazing Kurzweil has a mind and heart that deserve our continued attention and respect." Read more

15 customers mention "Reading quality"15 positive0 negative

Customers find the book engaging and thought-provoking. They appreciate the author's intriguing ideas and vision of life in the future. The Platonic dialog approach to some chapters is also mentioned as an interesting feature. Overall, readers find the book impactful and enjoyable.

"...All in all, this is an extremely interesting book to read...." Read more

"This is an immensely interesting & provocative little book by Ray Kurzweil...." Read more

"...them in the near future, is very thought-provoking, and makes for compelling reading...." Read more

"...whether the scenarios he predicts are really plausible, but it's certainly interesting. By 2099, humanity has effectively acheived immortality...." Read more

7 customers mention "Pacing"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book readable. They appreciate the author's prose and narration style, which is conversational rather than technical.

"...It's not a great pleasure to read this book. Ray Kurzweil is good at writing prose, but his technique of a conversation with an imaginary "Molly"..." Read more

"...and there's a lot of that stuff in this book, but Kurzweil is also a readable and prolific philosopher, and whether you agree with his philosophy or..." Read more

"...It helps to know a little physics, but his prose is clear and easy to understand...." Read more

"Kurzweil is an interesting writer, he has some fascinating ideas...." Read more

4 customers mention "Material quality"0 positive4 negative

Customers find the book's material outdated.

"...so much about, it was written 20 years ago and the material was dated for the most part...." Read more

"a bit dated at this point but a really good read" Read more

"Interesting....some outdated material...." Read more

"Out of date and careless research..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2024
    Ray Kurzweil can rightfully claim the title of "prophet", because his predictions of 1998 have proven to be uncannily accurate here in 2024. While he missed some things, he also certainly made an amazing amount of correct guesses. His work is thoroughly worth reading in 2024, unlike almost all other books attempting prophecy.

    On the misses: he assumed that there would be continuing value to intellectual property, which now appears to be wrong. That particular miss mars some of his other guesses based on that assumption, particularly ones about structuring future economies on the continuing value of intellectual property. (Also, for the computer science types, he also seems to have missed on guesses about genetic algorithms being a key component of AI; that does not seem to have panned out, or, at least, not up to this point.)

    The spoiler is that he predicted the end of humanity at the hands of our AI progeny. Let's strongly hope that he got that one wrong, too.

    It's not a great pleasure to read this book. Ray Kurzweil is good at writing prose, but his technique of a conversation with an imaginary "Molly" over the decades of the 21st century isn't one that I liked. These imagined conversations make up a fair percentage of the page count (roughly 65 pages of the total 260 pages in the main body of the book, which is over 20%), and I personally found those wearying to wade through.

    His timeline in the appendix is excellent, and it is worth skipping to it first, before tackling the text.

    I think that this is an important book that everyone should be familiar with, particularly the dire end of MOSHs (Mostly Original Substrate Humans.) We can always hope that we escape that fate!
    8 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2020
    Written in 1999, this book is very comprehensive and generally right in its predictions. Technology has advanced substantially, has reached many middle-class families here and abroad, and computer programs that simulate thinking and planning are being used effectively by corporations and governments.
    One area where the book may have been less accurate is that Kurzweil's idea of AI being one computer or a group of computers that has human-like intelligence or superintelligence appears to have been displaced by networking of people, universities, corporations, and government departments (social media and the Cloud). The Cloud would seem to be more or less something like the Singularity he predicts. A good summary of Kurzweil's and AI researcher ideas can be seen in the documentary film "Transcendent Man".
    Two other recent topics are worth noting: energy and public health. While there may be some exploration of energy sources for large-scale AI in his other books and in the film, this title does not explain how much solar energy, nuclear reactors, or hydropower would be required for global scale AI networks. If the energy system is not sustainable the AI dream would be quite limited. On public health, specifically disease outbreaks, it is now clear in 2020 that highly infectious diseases like the coronavirus are a challenge that government can respond better to when government uses internet technology, databases, Cloud computing, and "AI", not to mention high-tech manufacturing.
    The internet pioneers were optimists about technology's future. Ultimately, we invented and developed modern technology to improve the quality of life. Today, as technology has grown more powerful our choices about how to use technology are more consequential. The knowledge and experience of our leaders and the fairness and decency of leaders overseas will be tested severely by this newly found power.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2001
    The argument here starts with the observation that intelligent machines are already a reality. In the future we will be able to create ever more intelligent machines. A truly explosive increase in machine intelligence is described, up to unimaginable levels only 100 years from now.
    As far as hardware is concerned, the author insists that Moore's law, according to which computing power at a given cost doubles every 18 months, will continue unabated. Current computer technology will hit fundamental physical constrains in about 10 years, but the author insists that intelligence will find a way to grow explosively without slowing down because of mere physics. He describes several potential avenues through which computer power can increase. The most intriguing one is the possibility of building quantum computers. According to theory these can have immense computing power, because quantum phenomena allow for a huge number of calculations to be done in parallel. Nature does never give something for nothing, and, for my taste, quantum computers come too close to the edge - but who knows?
    More interesting is the question of software. When I was a student I was taught that hardware power is not very significant for defining the reach of computers, because algorithmic complexity almost always grows exponentially when related to the size of the problem to be solved. So fundamental advances will come from better algorithms, not from increased hardware power. The current state of affairs seems to agree with this view. After all, word processing 20 years ago using an Apple II is not fundamentally different from word processing today using computers a thousand times more powerful. Algorithmic design is a very costly process that few humans can do well, and this fact, it seems, would necessarily frustrate the rapid increase in machine intelligence. The author produces two solutions: One, to dissect a human brain and copy its "algorithm". To me this sounds rather similar to Da Vinci's idea of dissecting birds in order to build a flying machine. The second solution refers to methods where the algorithm builds itself, i.e. learns how to work. Two methodologies are mentioned here, genetic algorithms and neural nets. Many examples are given about the successful use of these to solve surprisingly difficult problems. These are powerful ideas. Certainly if we come to a point where an intelligent machine can design and maybe build an even more intelligent machine, then indeed we have the ingredients for a runaway explosion of intelligence.
    The author paints a rather scary near future. First we use machines to broaden our own minds, but we also build independent machines that become more and more powerful. The war between conscious machines and humans never happens, because it is won by the machines before it even starts: Human minds migrate into machines and lead a fruitful life within the more expansive means that this new medium offers. A few biological humans remain at a much lower level of intelligence, and presumably wilt away without remorse or bitterness. The next level of evolution is achieved by beings that are unimaginably more intelligent than we are now. At this stage it is not meaningful to talk about machines, they are just our offspring living in bodies that are not DNA based. In fact these immortal beings include persons originally born as humans, including, it is stated, Microsoft's Bill Gates. Again, all of this will happen in the next 100 years.
    Now, what is wrong in this picture, apart from the idea of having Bill Gates around for all eternity?
    For starters, for this vision to work the whole world should be like California, which it is not. On most places of this planet misery rather than intelligence rules. The book was written before the techno-bubble burst, an event not predicted in the book, and also before the recent power failures in California itself. The earth is in such bad working order that one must wonder if ever intelligence will take hold.
    Also, if the explosion of intelligence is a necessary natural phenomenon, something like an unstoppable supernova, then by now the universe should be full of manifestations of intelligence, it should be infused, drenched, saturated by intelligence. Why, entire suns would be cloaked in order to harvest their energy needed for the huge amount of computations going on. (Maybe this explains the mystery of the dark matter, i.e. the fact that most matter in the universe is not visible.) Also, why hasn't this cosmic intelligent fabric reached us? Well, maybe they wanted to leave part of the universe in its natural state, you know like we keep protected nature parks. Our corner of the universe may be just such a place. We do not listen to the noise created by intelligence elsewhere, but maybe this only shows our low level of development.
    Now, if we assume that the universe is not really intelligent, this leaves us with three possibilities: First, for some reason there may exist intrinsic limits to the growth of intelligence. This does not seem probable, particularly after reading this book. Second, depressingly, the explosive growth of intelligence may always bring about its demise, the same way that the uncontrolled growth of cancer kills the organism that creates it. This sounds rather plausible if we observe the way humanity manages the world today. The third possibility is that the growth of intelligence reaches a level where it decides to stop, where it understands that the "law of accelerating returns" is not conducive to happiness. So maybe the universe is filled not only by intelligent, but also by wise races, that look after their own small garden without disturbing the rest of creation, and live meaningful, biological, limited lives.
    All in all, this is an extremely interesting book to read. I withhold one star, only because I find that the catchy title has little relevance to its content.
    16 people found this helpful
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  • Jean Benoit Dubé
    5.0 out of 5 stars A must
    Reviewed in Canada on December 24, 2022
    Great book which made me think and take a step back. A new perspective on tech and society is refreshing. An opinion more nuanced and educated than « society is trash, tech is bad, future is screwed » that we usually hear and see in sci fi movies.
  • KellyHotel
    5.0 out of 5 stars This is a great book
    Reviewed in Germany on June 16, 2024
    I ordered this book from the United States. It was hard to find in the US. No problems with delivery.
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Insight into the future
    Reviewed in India on August 6, 2023
    A book that informs of the future of man and man home in the field of AI. A good read by all standards
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    Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Insight into the future
    Reviewed in India on August 6, 2023
    A book that informs of the future of man and man home in the field of AI. A good read by all standards
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  • gerardo escalante
    5.0 out of 5 stars Altamente recomendable
    Reviewed in Mexico on December 5, 2019
    Excelente libro
  • Mr. Gergely Somogyi
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good product.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 10, 2017
    Quick delivery. Good product.