The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

Cover
Also by Ray Kurzweil
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Where Are We in the Six Stages?
Chapter 2: Reinventing Intelligence
	What Does It Mean to Reinvent Intelligence?
	The Birth of AI
	The Cerebellum: A Modular Structure
	The Neocortex: A Self-Modifying, Hierarchical, Flexible Structure
	Deep Learning: Re-creating the Powers of the Neocortex
	What Does AI Still Need to Achieve?
	Passing the Turing Test
	Extending the Neocortex into the Cloud
Chapter 3: Who Am I?
	What Is Consciousness?
	Zombies, Qualia, and the Hard Problem of Consciousness
	Determinism, Emergence, and the Free Will Dilemma
	The Free Will Dilemma of More than One Brain per Human
	“You 2” Is Conscious. Is It You?
	The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being
	After Life
	Who Can I Be?
Chapter 4: Life Is Getting Exponentially Better
	The Public Consensus Is the Opposite
	The Reality Is That Nearly Every Aspect of Life Is Getting Progressively Better as a Result of Exponentially Improving Technology
	Literacy and Education
	Availability of Flush Toilets, Electricity, Radio, Television, and Computers
	Life Expectancy
	Decline in Poverty and Increase in Income
	Decline in Violence
	Growth of Renewable Energy
	Spread of Democracy
	We Are Now Entering the Steep Part of the Exponential
	Renewable Energy Is Approaching Complete Replacement of Fossil Fuels
	We Are Approaching Clean Water Access for Everyone
	Vertical Agriculture Will Provide Inexpensive, High-Quality Food and Free Up the Land We Use for Horizontal Agriculture
	3D Printing Will Revolutionize the Creation and Distribution of Physical Things
	3D Printing of Buildings
	Diligent People Will Achieve Longevity Escape Velocity by Around 2030
	The Rising Tide
Chapter 5: The Future of Jobs: Good or Bad?
	The Current Revolution
	Destruction and Creation
	Is This Time Different?
	So Where Are We Headed?
Chapter 6: The Next Thirty Years in Health and Well-Being
	The 2020s: Combining AI with Biotechnology
	The 2030s and 2040s: Developing and Perfecting Nanotechnology
	Applying Nanotechnology to Health and Longevity
Chapter 7: Peril
	Promise and Peril
	Nuclear Weapons
	Biotechnology
	Nanotechnology
	Artificial Intelligence
Chapter 8: Dialogue with Cassandra
Appendix: Price-Performance of Computation, 1939–2023 Chart Sources
Notes
Index
About the Author