THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES

Reading the entrails of artificial intelligence and molecular biology, inventor Kurtzweil here posits a twenty-first century of sentient (a word he misuses) machines so sophisticated that they gain a soul (a word he avoids, though it is what he means). The great amount of multisyllabic techno-babble compounds problems for his narrator. How is Alan Sklar going to make these swampy phrases clear and still keep an eye on the author’s trajectory? Sklar opts for the industrial film voice-over approach. Going phrase by phrase, he lets the threads of thought fend for themselves. While admirably smoothing out the rough spots, he soon grows dull for want of attention to the book’s architecture. Y.R. © AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/NOV 99]