Ray Kurzweil has 5 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 6 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 56 ratings. The most-rated is How to Create a Mind.
How to Create a Mind
Summary
Ray Kurzweil, the bold futurist and author of the New York Times best seller The Singularity Is Near, is arguably today’s most influential technological visionary. A pioneering inventor and theorist, he has explored for decades how artificial intelligence can enrich and expand human capabilities. Now, in his much-anticipated How to Create a Mind, he takes this exploration to the next step: reverse-engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works, then applying that knowledge to create vastly intelligent machines. Drawing on the most recent neuroscience research, his own research and inventions in artificial intelligence, and compelling thought experiments, he describes his new theory of how the neocortex (the thinking part of the brain) works: as a self-organizing hierarchical system of pattern recognizers. Kurzweil shows how these insights will enable us to greatly extend the powers of our own mind and provides a road map for the creation of super-intelligence - humankind’s most exciting next venture. We are now at the dawn of an era of radical possibilities in which merging with our technology will enable us to effectively address the world’s grand challenges. How to Create a Mind is certain to be one of the most widely discussed and debated science books in many years - a touchstone for any consideration of the path of human progress.
©2012 Ray Kurzweil (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Singularity Is Near
Summary
“Startling in scope and bravado.” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times) “Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.” (Los Angeles Times) “Elaborate, smart and persuasive.” (The Boston Globe) “A pleasure to read.” (The Wall Street Journal) One of CBS News’ Best Fall Books of 2005 Among St Louis Post-Dispatch’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2005 One of Amazon.com’s Best Science Books of 2005 A radical and optimistic view of the future course of human development from the best-selling author of How to Create a Mind and The Singularity is Nearer who Bill Gates calls “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence”. For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: The union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.
©2005 Ray Kurzweil (P)2019 Penguin Audio
The Age of Spiritual Machines
Summary
Ray Kurzweil is the inventor of the most innovative and compelling technology of our era, an international authority on artificial intelligence, and one of our greatest living visionaries. Now he offers a framework for envisioning the 21st century - an age in which the marriage of human sensitivity and artificial intelligence fundamentally alters and improves the way we live. Kurzweil's prophetic blueprint for the future takes us through the advances that inexorably result in computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain by the year 2020 (with human-level capabilities not far behind); in relationships with automated personalities who will be our teachers, companions, and lovers; and in information fed straight into our brains along direct neural pathways. Optimistic and challenging, thought-provoking and engaging, The Age of Spiritual Machines is the ultimate guide on our road into the next century.
©Ray Kurzweil, 1998; ©1998 Penguin Audiobooks
Ray Kurzweil Commencement Address at WPI (May 21, 2005)
Summary
Ray Kurzweil, the world-renowned inventor, futurist, and author, addresses the graduating class at Worcester Polytechnic Institute's 137th commencement in Worcester, Mass. Kurzweil talks about what he calls "the three great revolutions:" genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. His message to the graduates: "Creating knowledge is really what the human species is all about." Ray Kurzweil is one of the world's leading inventors and innovators. Among his many achievements, he was the principal developer of the first omni-font optical character recognition (OCR), the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, and the first text-to-speech synthesizer. His numerous honors include induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002. His web site www.KurzweilAI.net is a leading resource on artificial intelligence.
©2005 Worcester Polytechnic Institute (P)2005 Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Transcend
Summary
In Transcend, famed futurist Ray Kurzweil and his coauthor, Terry Grossman, MD, present a cutting-edge, accessible program based on the vanguard in nutrition and science. They've distilled thousands of scientific studies to make the case that new developments in medicine and technology will allow us to radically extend our life expectancies and slow the aging process. Transcend gives you the practical tools you need to live long enough (and remain healthy long enough) to take full advantage of the biotech and nanotech advances that have already begun and will continue to occur at an accelerating pace during the years ahead. To help you remember the nine key components of the program, Ray and Terry have arranged them into a mnemonic: Talk with Your Doctor, Relaxation, Assessment, Nutrition, Supplements, Calorie Reduction, Exercise, New Technologies, Detoxification. This easy-to-follow program will help you transcend the boundaries of your genetic legacy and live long enough to live forever.
©2009 Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, MD (P)2021 Tantor