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In this much-anticipated sequel to The Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil presents the next stage of his compelling view of the future. The merging of humans and machines -- the Singularity -- will be "... 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," he says.

We are in the very early stages of this transition, and within just a few decades, life as we know it will be completely different, Kurzweil explains. "Non-biological intelligence will match the range and subtlety of human intelligence. It will then soar past it because of the continuing acceleration of information-based technologies, as well as the ability of machines to instantly share their knowledge. By 2045, we'll get to a point where technical progress will be so fast that un-enhanced human intelligence will be unable to follow it."

That means we will reprogram our DNA, human aging and illness will be reversed, world hunger and pollution will be solved, and our bodies will be transformed by nanotechnology, so that, for example, we will eventually be able to augment and replace our biological organs and vastly extend our intelligence. Eventually, he concludes, we will increase the powers of our intelligenceUniverse. by trillions of trillions of times and expand to rest of the