The Speculist

James Miller has published at Tech Central Station the first review I've read of Ray Kurzweil's forthcoming book, "The Singularity Is Near."

The embargo must have lifted. Expect my review shortly.

I do have a few nitpicks of Miller's review. Miller said:

But the regular doubling of computing power means computers will quickly reach human equivalence. Kurzweil estimates this will happen by the early 2030s.

But that's not quite what Kurzweil said. Kurzweil prediction is, I believe, that $1,000 would buy that much computer power by the 2030s. Kurzweil would put the arrival of computers with human levels of computation much sooner. But it'll cost considerably more than $1,000.

Miller also said:

Although Kurzweil makes a very convincing argument that the Singularity will likely occur in the near future, he writes as if the Singularity's occurrence this century is a certainty. Technological progress is difficult to predict... I would have that Kurzweil title his book The Singularity Is Probably Near.

The specifics of technological progress are difficult to predict. But technological progress as a whole is following a remarkably smooth and predictable curve. Will Sony's HD standard become king or go the way of betamax? That's impossible to say today. Will the video we watch 20 years from now be at higher definition than today? Barring some major civilization-shaking catastrophe - yes. Of that I have no doubt.

This, I think, is a major thesis of Kurzweil's book. Technology has momentum and trajectory. If we take exponential development into account we don't have to be caught flat-footed by these developments.

I predict that The Singularity Is Near will be the most reviewed book in the Blogosphere this year. Because the book draws on so many areas of scientific knowledge, blogs are the perfect medium by which to evaluate Kurzweil's Singularity thesis. Furthermore, although written to be read by non-scientists, the text is far more technologically sophisticated than most non-academic books. A programmer or engineer who keeps a blog will be better able to comment intelligently on this book than most members of the main stream media would be.

I hope Miller is right about this. Politics has and probably will always rule the blogosphere. But these ideas presented by Kurzweil are far more important than who wins the next election.