Dear Mr. Kurzweil,
Thank you so much for all your help, time, and encouragement throughout my paper and presentation. It was really exciting that you could be in my 7th grade presentation.
I realize as a Director of Engineering at Google you are very busy. I would love to visit Google. I really appreciate everything you have done and all the resources that you sent.
— Lucy… read more
In “The return of the newsletter,” Wired notes today that with better spam filters and other tools, non-stop overload from Facebook and Twitter, and the death of RSS, newsletters are “making something of a comeback.”
The article mentions KurzweilAI News and nine other newsletters, including mini-AIR, the newsletter of the hilarious Annals of Improbable Research magazine, noted for its annual Ig Nobel Prizes (such as one earlier this… read more
Ray Kurzweil responds to concerns from Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, Phd, on the future possibility of dangers from developments in artificial intelligence. This was also published in Time magazine’s Ideas section.
related reading:
Time | “Don’t fear artificial intelligence” by Ray Kurzweil
Don’t fear artificial intelligence
by Ray Kurzweil
Stephen Hawking, the pre-eminent physicist, recently warned that artificial intelligence… read more
It would require a different way of thinking about the timing of the Singularity, says AGI pioneer Ben Goertzel, PhD. Rather than a predictive exercise, it would require thinking about it the way an athlete thinks about a game when going into it, or the way the Manhattan Project scientists thought at the start of the project.
This article, written in 2010, is excerpted with permission from Goertzel’s new… read more
Additive manufacturing — or 3D printing — is 30 years old this year. Today, it’s found not just in industry but in households, as the price of 3D printers has fallen below US$1,000. Knowing you can print almost anything, not just marks on paper, opens up unlimited opportunities for us to manufacture toys, household appliances and tools in our living rooms.
But there’s more that can be done with… read more
Ray Kurzweil was presented with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Eta Kappa Nu honor society top honor, Eminent Member, at the 2014 IEEE Educational Activities Board Awards Ceremony. He received the honor for technical attainments and contributions to society through outstanding leadership in the profession of electrical and computer engineering.
The Induction and Awards presentation took place during the week of IEEE’s Meeting Series. Members of the… read more
Dear Mr. Kurzweil,
I’m in seventh grade, taking a research class called Da Vinci. I have to produce a 10 page annotated paper. I will produce a multimedia presentation on my topic.
My topic is immortality through genetics, nanotechnology and robotics with a special emphasis on artificial intelligence, such as living in a virtual world as an avatar.
Our teacher encouraged us to reach out to experts.… read more
Dear Ray,
I was hoping for your views on the potential elitization of singularity that could lead to exacerbation of class, opportunity and economic division.
The ongoing quest for extending human life and artificially enhancing its quality testifies to our instincts for permanence and survival at all cost.
Technologically acquired supremacy breaks the well accepted paradigm that improved life span, physical and cognitive performance is possible only with practice, studious effort and… read more
Exactly what exploded in a ball of flame over Wallops Island, Virginia, on Tuesday October 28 at 6:22 pm? And what brought down Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo over the Mojave Desert Friday morning just after ten am?
Was the vehicle that exploded above the launch pad in Virginia, as some headlines have proclaimed, a NASA rocket? Was it, as others have said, a commercial rocket? Or were both… read more
This week, I can predict with a high degree of accuracy that more than 50,000 car accidents will occur in the U.S., over 500 of which will involve fatalities. Last week was no different. Is social media alive with discussions on the future of the automotive industry due to these incidents? Have the “Big Three” seen major losses in stock prices? Are people now afraid to get into their cars… read more
Parallel universes — worlds where the dinosaur-killing asteroid never hit, or where Australia was colonised by the Portuguese – are a staple of science fiction. But are they real?
In a radical paper published this week in Physical Review X [and available here in open-access arXiv --- Ed.] we (Dr Michael Hall and I from Griffith University and Dr Dirk-André Deckert from the University of California) propose not only that parallel… read more
Dear readers,
I want to share some articles written by my wife, Sonya Kurzweil, PhD who is a psychologist in private practice and clinical instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School. Sonya’s medical expertise is women, children, parents and families.
She is interested in the way that digital media can be integrated into the lives of children and teens.
Her recent essays on parenting and digital technology… read more
Ray,
The promises of accelerating technology are impressive, possibly eliminating disease, poverty, and even death.
But I wonder what hope there is for the lonely. Personally, I’m approaching middle age and have never been on a date. And I know I’m not the only one out there in this situation.
Is there anything technology can do in the near or far future to help people like me… read more
Radio Open Source — July 27, 2014 | Christopher Lydon
The jobless economy: a fully automated, engineered, robotic system that doesn’t need you, or me either. Anything we can do, machines can do better — surgery, warfare, farming, finance. What’s to do? Shall we smash the machines, or go to the beach, or finally learn to play the piano?
Economists predict that 50% of US jobs could be automated in a decade or two. Big fun show with… read more
Hello Ray,
The universe existed several billion years before humans were conscious, and will exist several billion years after we are conscious.
So, it is statistically improbable for the chronological timeline of the universe to be located at this precise moment, when we are conscious, that is, an 80 year lifespan within some 30 billion years.
Are you aware of any theories, besides survivorship bias from statistics, that… read more
