The Evolving Union of Human and Machine
As Ray Kurzweil continues to explore the potential future relationship between humanity and AI, we revisit his seminal works that predicted the current changing landscape.
By Duckworth Books
17 July 2024
It seems that the hottest trending topic of 2024 is AI.
From ChatGPT and Midjourney, to the TikTok algorithm, to the development of self-driving cars, the ways in which AI is currently being used and possibly could be used is being explored, debated, ridiculed, and potentially regulated.
Numerous tech companies are incorporating it into their user experience, with Apple most recently announcing the release of Apple Intelligence as part of iOS18, generative AI that intertwines with, to quote Apple CEO Tim Cooke, the ‘user’s personal context to deliver truly helpful intelligence’.*
It is timely then, to reissue two groundbreaking titles from the world’s preeminent AI futurist.
It is timely to reissue two groundbreaking titles from the world's preeminent AI futurist
Described by Bill Gates as ‘the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence’, Ray Kurzweil is a computer scientist, prize winning author, and advocate for futurist and transhumanist movements, with a thirty-year track record of accurate predictions.
A pioneer in his field, he is credited with inventing text-to-speech synthesizers, has worked with Stevie Wonder to create music synthesizers that mimic real instruments, and was personally hired by Google co-founder Larry Page to work as a principal researcher and AI Visionary within the company.
His hugely influential work, The Singularity is Near, published by Duckworth in 2006, was the radical, original vision of the future of human-machine civilization.
The Singularity is Near is the radical, original vision of the future of human-machine civilization
Kurzweil’s innovative vision of the future, that the limitations of our biology will be overcome when human consciousness is able to meld with intelligent technology, has shaped the current conversations about AI, and has been a fundamental influence for tech companies across the globe.
In addition to our reissue of The Singularity is Near, we are also reissuing How to Create a Mind, a provocative exploration of the most important project in human-machine civilisation: reverse-engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even more intelligent machines.
Kurzweil mediates on the development of pattern recognition, where creativity and love exist within the brain, and what consciousness really means in the development of AI systems. He envisions a disease-free future in which the problems of aging have become obsolete.
Kurzweil’s innovative vision of the future is that the limitations of our biology will be overcome when human consciousness is able to meld with intelligent technology
While we have not yet reached this future, Kurzweil has a strong belief that we will. Only the passage of time will tell, but given Kurzweil’s track record for predictions, some version of this potential future seems likely.
These two books, stunningly reimagined, are for readers who have been interested in AI but are unsure where to begin, for readers who have always been meaning to get around to reading Kurzweil, for the AI fanatics, for the AI sceptics, for fans of smart thinking non-fiction.
*Tim Cooke as quoted in ‘Introducing Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that puts powerful generative models at the core of iPhone, iPad, and Mac’.
From the world's preeminent AI futurist: his radical and influential original vision of the shared destiny of humans and machines
The Singularity is Near
ISBN 9780715654521
‘Startling in scope and bravado’ The New York Times
In his now-classic and hugely influential exploration of the evolving union of human and machine, world-renowned inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil foresees the dawning of a new civilisation where humans will transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity by combining our aptitudes with the vastly greater capacity, speed and knowledge-sharing abilities of Artificial Intelligence. This melding of human and machine is what he terms ‘the singularity’.
How to Create a Mind
ISBN 9780715654538
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Kurzweil sets out how the brain functions, how the mind emerges from the brain, and the implications of vastly increased and evolving intelligence in addressing the world’s problems. He thoughtfully examines emotional and moral intelligence and the origins of consciousness and envisions the radical – arguably inevitable – future of our merging with the intelligent technology we are creating, aka ‘the singularity’.
