The director of MIT's Media Lab, Gershenfeld's got his finger on the pulse of computing's future, and his visions are realistic rather than sensational. He promptly answers his own question in this text that is less of a prophetic work and more of a blueprint for the next 20 years in technology. One of the most renowned inventors of our generation, Kurzweil has created the Kurzweil reading machine, the Kurzweil synthesizer, and advanced speech recognition, among other technologies. He believes that the era of computers having emotions and artificial intelligence is upon us. Chapters are devoted to effects on home PCs, on the job, the news, airplanes, and more.
Advice is given on how to deal with the problem if and when they actually occur.