NKS has a lot of very interesting bits of information, ideas and experiments. Some of it is truly novel. At least, I think some are truly novel, because there are also quite a few ideas that aren't novel, but he doesn't mention that fact or cite anyone. And he kind of speaks down about biology and other sciences, about things they are supposedly not researching, except they do.
It would have been a much nicer book if he had connected his ideas in universality, fundamental computing, math, physics and biology, to the rest of those fields. He mentions many of these connections/theories, but does not cite them or even attribute them to their respective fields of science.
Otherwise if you can read past all that, it's super interesting. It just leaves me with the inclination that, if I want to find out more about these new subjects, I'd be best of starting out looking for information not by Wolfram, if only just to get a good view/idea of the field right now, since Wolfram isn't citing anyone, but others probably are.