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.<p>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 <i>extreme</i>, extreme as extremely large software. Secondly to simulate the way the brain works we need to have a paradigm shift in how we <i>build</i> computers. It is also my contention that a large part of what we call <i>human intelligence</i> lies in language and NLP is a hard still unsolved problem.