Kurtzweil's predictions are mostly on target so far and his arguments hold that if he is a couple of years off on a prediction, the prediction is still essentia

Kurtzweil's predictions are mostly on target so far and his arguments hold that if he is a couple of years off on a prediction, the prediction is still essentially correct. I am not sure though that I agree with him on the timing of the 'singularity issue'. I pretty much agree with him though, that we are at the dawn of a new era where computers and bioengineering will have a profound effect on humans. There are many reasons as to why I am skeptical about the singularity - primarily stemming from my experience in programming. At present we do not have the engineering tools to do so - and nobody is really working hard on it. We are lacking efficient ways of generating software and most importantly the management skills to do so for extreme, extreme as extremely large software. Secondly to simulate the way the brain works we need to have a paradigm shift in how we build computers. It is also my contention that a large part of what we call human intelligence lies in language and NLP is a hard still unsolved problem.