The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

by Ray Kurzweil

Inventing is a lot like surfing: you have to anticipate and catch the wave at just the right moment.

Some observers question whether we are capable of applying our own thinking to understand our own thinking.

Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world. —ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

It’s a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed.

law of accelerating returns (the inherent acceleration of the rate of evolution, with technological evolution as a continuation of biological evolution).

The key idea underlying the impending Singularity is that the pace of change of our human-created technology is accelerating and its powers are expanding at an exponential pace.

By the end of this century, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will be trillions of trillions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence.