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Human life and the human condition are changing
rapidly as we enter the new century, and they are about
to change even faster and more radically. Dazzling scientific
breakthroughs are changing how long we live, where we live,
how we dress, how we communicate, how we work and what work
we do, and even how we think and imagine. Scientist Vernor
Vinge proposed that humanity is approaching what he called
the Singularity and what Broderick has renamed the Spike:
that moment in human history when heretofore unimaginable
changes -- the advent of artificial intelligence, of human
immortality, of nanotechnology, are just a few of the changes
-- occur with such rapidity and number that the human race
will be transformed, or destroyed. And that moment, many
experts predict, is almost upon us. This book of wonders
and dangers brings it all together to stretch our minds.
Damien Broderick, a noted Australian
critic and scholar with an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in literature
and science, lives in Melbourne, Australia.
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