A good read. With good potential if we could get rid of those who use such developments for worse means.
I think we may well all go together before this time is reached though, as you suggest, when perhaps the machines could point us in better directions if there was time.
I did like these bits though...
Perhaps the most important development, and the one that Ray Kurzweil sees as necessary, is the merger of humanity with technology. He argues that in order to even comprehend the immense change caused by the singularity, humans must amplify their own intelligence with that of the computer, even up to the point of 'uploading' your mind into a computer. This sounds like a scary prospect for most (including myself to an extent!), but it would allow immortality to all extents and purposes.
Immortality in the cloud? Nah...more likely this....
http://www.megaupload.com thanks to the SOPA muppets in charge.
Nanobots could be programmed to replicate indefinitely, consuming the entire planet, along with ourselves in the infamous 'grey goo' scenario (click the link if you want a good scare).
Our selfish genes surely see us as the already pre-programmed grey goo nanobots? We're too hellbent on reaching idiocracy and the eventual depletion of all resources by our supposed collective sheep wisdom to need their help.
Deadly, untreatable viruses could be engineered to wipe out large portions of humanity.
Paul Wolfowitz has this one in the bag long before heading up the world bank, (as his fallback position of promoted demotion), he already laid out "That the human genome project has enabled biological warfare to become a useful [race labelled] political tool". It's somewhere amidst the team B crazies policy papers for PNAC, the OSP, the zio chickenhawks Iraq War lying drafts (rolled out verbatim (plus forgeries and mock Anthrax) many years later) and the general psychopathy of the neo-con coup, of the wider chessboard afoot.
Now it's Sachs' Obama'R'money and his clones, at the ever changing titanic deckchairs of same shit heads, different election fraud days.
Not one to pander to them, or wish to belittle the reptile theories but it would be the rich man to Newter these clowns before yet more Dick and Colon bashing continues, under the new teams hopefuls, who ALL quite frankly, are the dictionary definition of Santorum! We are all, most definitely, getting Quantitatively Eased by the Fiat scams bankers, so I doubt this computer singularity will have the time to unfold personally.
Doomsday Preppers, Wagons Ho!