If you are interested in obtaining a summary view of the most exciting areas of research & priority today – this is a good book to skim through. I went into this book with the wrong expectations based on the title and sub-title – what it covers is for the most part the near future.

The book starts with a long discussion on exponential growth. This is followed by current progress in AI. There are references to Ray Kurzweil's (as also others like Yuval Noah Harari) books here and in many other sections. The ethical issues which AI brings are included. Next is a description of the progress robotics is making - another key area of investment (used for homes, delivery, search & rescue, traffic control, surveillance etc). Flying cars is the next frontier, after self-driving cars. The development of lethal automated weapons is another issue which has many worried but some countries oppose an outright ban. There are various other topics - Brain computer interfaces (promises help for those with damage to spinal cord, Alzheimers etc), Consciousness, Quantum Mechanics & Computing, Earth's burgeoning population, Global warming, Cryptocurrencies, the mysteries of the Universe including dark energy, life outside Earth and the end-state.

I found this an interesting assortment of interesting topics. I had come across all of these before in other books; while that is still ok – I did not find much of the author’s own perspectives in most of the topics. Nevertheless, this provides in one place the most interesting matters which prey on our curious minds.