Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil
Raymond "Ray" Kurzweilis an American author, computer scientist, inventor and futurist. Aside from futurology, he is involved in fields such as optical character recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence, transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements, and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionInventor
Date of Birth12 February 1948
CountryUnited States of America
Death is a great tragedy…a profound loss…I don’t accept it…I think people are kidding themselves when they say they are comfortable with death.
By the time we get to the 2040s, we'll be able to multiply human intelligence a billionfold. That will be a profound change that's singular in nature. Computers are going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Ultimately, they will go inside our bodies and brains and make us healthier, make us smarter.
Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
Life expectancy is a statistical phenomenon. You could still be hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow.
Once we have inexpensive energy, we can readily and inexpensively convert the vast amount of dirty and salinated water we have on the planet to usable water.
New technologies can be used for destructive purposes. The answer is to develop rapid-response systems for new dangers like a bioterrorist creating a new biological virus.
The Blue Brain project expects to have a full human-scale simulation of the cerebral cortex by 2018. I think that's a little optimistic, actually, but I do make the case that by 2029 we will have very detailed models and simulations of all the different brain regions.
As order exponentially increases, time exponentially speeds up.
We are beginning to see intimations of this in the implantation of computer devices into the human body.
Exponential growth looks like nothing is happening, and then suddenly you get this explosion at the end,
What if not everyone wants to go along with this?
One could run these automata for trillions or even trillions of trillions of iterations, and the image would remain at the same limited level of complexity. They do not evolve into, say, insects, or humans, or Chopin preludes.
I really do believe it is feasible to slow down the aging process, ... We call that a bridge to a bridge to a bridge -- to the full flowering of the biotechnology revolution.