Ray Kurzweil is my hero
Oh, man, that keynote was wonderful. It filled me with a great sense of optimism about our species and the advances we can make in technology and biology. We hear so much negative news, about how this new cancer and that e-coli and this terrorist and that bird flu are all going to kill us, and maybe they will, but if the patterns of progress continue, there’s a good chance that they won’t.
I don’t know if Mr. Kurzweil is 100% on target, but even if he is 10% right, we humans are going to do some amazing things, and soon. It’s all about exponential development, people. Now I want to read his books.
I’ve been meaning to read Kurzweil’s stuff too. I imagine he talked about the Singularity (even if he didn’t actually use that specific word). I’ve read all of Vernor Vinge’s fiction on the subject, and Vinge and Kurzweil are probably the two most prominent proponents of Singularity theory and speculation.
More here.
Yes, he did mention Singularity, though only in passing. Thanks for the tip, and I’m looking forward to learning more.
I’m a couple nights from finishing A Fire Upon the Deep. That’s some wild stuff. Makes Dick look like Sendak.
Vinge is an exemplar of what I consider the very best kind of SciFi: come up with a really big, thought-provoking scientific/speculative idea, then write a really engaging story that takes place in the environment of that idea, but which works primarily as a *story*, without preaching about the big idea all the time.
Vinge does a great job of this, in A Fire Upon the Deep as well as its sequel A Deepness in the Sky and in The Peace War and its sequel Marooned in Realtime. The latter is the book dealing most directly with the Singularity, but it’s basically a page-turning murder mystery.
Good stuff!
WHA KURZWEIL WHAAAAAA.
I’m envious. I drip- DRIP- with envy.