Ray Kurzweil (b. 1948)

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Biography

Raymond Kurzweil is an American computer scientist, author, entrepreneur, futurist, and inventor. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health technology, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is an 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.

In Their Own Words (5)

So What's Left? Let's consider where we are, circa early 2030s. We've eliminated the heart, lungs, red and white blood cells, platelets, pancreas, thyroid and all the hormone-producing organs, kidneys, bladder, liver, lower esophagus, stomach, small intestines, large intestines, and bowel. What we have left at this point is the skeleton, skin, sex organs, sensory organs, mouth and upper esophagus, and brain.

p. 307 , 2005

Creating an avatar of this sort is one way of embodying that information in a way that human beings can interact with. It is inherently human to transcend limitations.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil Bring Dead Father Back to Life (August 9, 2011) , 2011

As intelligence saturates the matter and energy available to it, it turns dumb matter into smart matter.

p. 364 , 2005

To this day I remain convinced of this basic philosophy: no matter what quandries we face...there is an idea that can enable us to prevail.

2005

Before the next century is over, human beings will no longer be the most intelligent of capable type of entity on the planet.

1999

Timeline

The story of Ray Kurzweil, told in moments.

1965 Life

Appeared on the TV show I've Got a Secret at 17. His secret: he'd built a computer that composed music. He'd taught it to analyze patterns in compositions by famous composers.

How did it feel to go on TV at 17 with a music-composing computer? Did people take you seriously or treat you like a novelty? Was the computer's music any good?

1974 Event

Founded Kurzweil Computer Products. Developed the first omni-font optical character recognition system. Stevie Wonder heard about it and asked Kurzweil to build a reading machine for the blind.

What was it like when Stevie Wonder personally asked for a reading machine? How did you make machines read every font? Did accessibility drive you more than profit?

1990 Event

Published The Age of Intelligent Machines, predicting that a computer would beat the world chess champion by 1998. Deep Blue beat Kasparov in 1997.

How does it feel that Deep Blue proved you right by a year? Was predicting the chess match lucky or calculated? Do your predictions scare even you?

2005 Life

Published The Singularity Is Near, arguing that artificial intelligence would surpass human intelligence by 2045. He takes over 100 supplement pills daily to try to live long enough to see it.

Do you really believe intelligence will surpass ours by 2045? Are 100 supplement pills a day rational or desperate? What happens to humanity if the Singularity arrives?