We Are Quickly Approaching Immortality, Says Ray Kurzweil
What’s the Latest Development?
By 2019, computers will have an emotional intelligence comparable to humans, making them indistinguishable from us on essential levels of being. By By the 2030s, humans will have millions of nano-sized robots coursing through our bodies, which will effectively eliminate disease. By 2045, computers will be one billion times more powerful than the human brain. And by the 2050s, it will be possible to create an entire human body out of nano-machines, completely blurring the line between man and machine. Such are the bold predictions made by futurist, and soon-to-be lead engineer at Google, Ray Kurzweil.
What’s the Big Idea?
Kurzweil has long made predictions about the future of computing, amassing an impressive record of accuracy having foreseen, for example, that computers would defeat humans in chess during the 1990s. Currently working on a novel cancer treatment with researchers at MIT, Kurzweil’s larger goal is to radically extend the human life span. “We’ll get to a point about 15 years from now where we’re adding more than a year every year to your life expectancy,” he said, making another famously precise prediction. Just as we approach immortality, however, it will recede from us because “it’s never forever.”
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