I read this as a sort of act of intellectual masochism. I think that transhumanists like Kurzweil are largely totally off-base but many of them are smart, accomplished people and there are parts of the conversation that are interesting.

This piece is also interesting for its alarmist nature and age (published in 2000). Molecular electronics did not take over the world but we did just experience a pandemic that might have originated from a lab. Still, I don't think the fear-mongering is warranted and it seems to me that many people who excel at computer science fail to appreciate the extent to which our brains are distinct from computers.