Ray Kurzweil - More on the singularity

More, today, from Ray Kurzweil - and how we'll all be immortal by 2045.

Ray Kurzweil: A singular view of the future

I'm interested to hear him put an actual date on it - I couldn't glean the date form the earlier material I saw.

This is one of the better summaries I've heard of Kurzweil's "exponential" calculations... from Kurweil himself of course:

"In the mid-1980s, I predicted the emergence of the World Wide Web for the mid-1990s. It seemed ridiculous then, when the entire US defence budget could only link up a few thousand scientists. But I saw it doubling every year and it happened right on schedule. It is quite remarkable how predictable these measures of the power of information technology are. Even so, millions of innovators are going to come up with unexpected ideas. Who would have anticipated social networks and blogs? If 10 years ago I had said we're going to create an encyclopedia and anybody can write and edit it, you'd have thought, my god, it's going to be full of graffiti and completely worthless. It's amazing how good it is if we harness the collective wisdom."

I suppose I was excited by this article, partly because my original reason for starting this blog was Kurzweil's own theories - and the exciting prospects that they encompass.

For more on my original reasons for starting this blog and Kurzweil's other recent writing, see this original post: The Big Bang.