The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

THE SINGULARITY IS NEARER: When We Merge with AI by Ray Kurzweil. Viking, 2024. 419 pages. Hardcover; $20.21. ISBN: 9780399562761. *In summer 2014, on my advisor's advice, I began to explore transhumanism as a dissertation topic. I soon encountered Ray Kurzweil's 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near, and its forecast that around 2045 computer systems would attain superhuman intelligence. This development, according to Kurzweil, would lead to an age of rapid and unpredictable progress known as the "Singularity." Fundamental changes in the human condition would follow. *But there was a problem: whenever I mentioned Kurzweil, my frustrated advisor would respond, "Ugh! Why should we pay any attention to Ray…