The Age of Spiritual Machines was written in 1999 and makes predictions for 2009, 2019, 2029 and 2099. The ones for 2009 are right on track. The first half of the book is about artificial intelligence, Moore’s law, the law of accelerating returns, why evolution seems to go against the second law of thermodynamics, the origin and fate of the universe, quantum entanglement and a lot more. If you think this is a book about robots, you’re in for a surprise. This is a book about immortality, the transcendence of the human race by our creations. The second – I think, weaker – half of the book is all prognostication. Past 2009 I find the predictions rather hard to believe, and a little boring. Thankfully, Kurzweil ends each chapter with dialogue between himself and a fictional character who is living in each of the time periods. Much more interesting, but I can see some people finding the device a bit annoying. The predictions are more than a bit optimistic and this book is a real mind-bender, but you’ll want to believe that this is our future.