Bold claims about the exponential progress of technology in the 21st century from Ray Kurzweil, the inventor of text-to-speech synthesisers and the first musical instrument synthesiser, are the centerpiece of his new book, The Singularity Is Near. His recently published conceptual overview of the manuscript asserts that based on previous rates of scientific advances in the 20st century, humanity will see "the order of 20,000 years of progress (by the end of the 21st century) when measured by the rate of progress in 2000, or about 1000 times that achieved in the 20th century," He claims that other scientists who do not forsee similar increases are fallaciously basing "the progress of the past 50 years as a model for the next half-century... assuming the current rate of progress will continue."

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The Misoneist Says: While there are undoubtedly great advances looming in the near and distant future in all areas of scientific discovery, the purpose of contextualizing what the perspective will feel like in human-years (20,000) seems trivial and sensationalist. In critiquing scientists for failing to recognize past exponential rates of advancement when predicting over-arching technological trends, he himself falls prey to his own arguement; exponential increases in technology are not guaranteed to continue either.