The Virtual Village
August 6, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
How technology quietly topples governments, written for “The Futurecast,” a monthly column in the Library Journal.… read more
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My Question for Edge: Who am I? What am I?
January 14, 2002 by Ray Kurzweil
Since we constantly changing, are we just patterns? What if someone copies that pattern? Am I the original and/or the copy? Ray Kurzweil responds to Edge publisher/editor John Brockman’s request to futurists to pose “hard-edge” questions that “render visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefine who and what we are.”… read more
Remarks about Tod Machover In Presenting the 2003 Ray Kurzweil Award of Technology in Music
August 11, 2003 by Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil presented the 2003 Ray Kurzweil Award of Technology in Music to Tod Machover at the Fourth Annual Telluride Tech Festival (August 8-10, 2003). The award was in recognition of Machover’s pioneering research at the MIT Media Lab in music technology, such as “hyperinstruments,” as well as his achievements as composer and performer.… read more
Sander Olson Interviews Ray Kurzweil
February 10, 2006 by Sander Olson, Ray Kurzweil
Nonbiological intelligence is multiplying by over 1,000 per decade. Once we can achieve the software of intelligence, which we will achieve through reverse-engineering the human brain, non-biological intelligence will soar past biological intelligence. By the 2040s, nonbiological intelligence will be a billion times more powerful than the 10^26 computations per second that all biological humanity represents.… read more
The Future of Libraries, Part 3: The Virtual Library
August 6, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
A look at the virtual library, written for “The Futurecast,” a monthly column in the Library Journal.… read more
Arguments for a Green AND Gray Future
May 1, 2002 by Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil and Gregory Stock, Director, UCLA Program on Medicine,
Technology and Society, debated “BioFuture vs. MachineFuture” at the Foresight Senior Associate Gathering, April 27, 2002. This is Ray Kurzweil’s presentation.… read more
Lunch with Mikhail Gorbachev
April 19, 2005 by Ray Kurzweil
With only 53,000 engineering graduates a year compared to Russia’s 200,000, the U.S. needs to “communicate the importance of science in today’s world,” Mikhail Gorbachev told Ray Kurzweil in a luncheon discussion that ranged from blogs to nuclear disarmament and longevity.… read more
In this keynote given at the 8th Annual Foresight Conference, Raymond Kurzweil discusses exponential trends in various technologies, and the double-edged sword accelerating technologies represent.… read more
Tribute to Michael Dertouzos (1936 — 2001)
August 30, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
In memory of Michael Dertouzos, 1936 — 2001.… read more
Kurzweil responds to Edge challenge, advises Bush
January 26, 2003 by Ray Kurzweil
In a hypothetical letter to President Bush, Ray Kurzweil advised him to accelerate FDA review of defensive solutions for bioengineered pathogens, fund a crash program for developing promising new methodologies for human somatic cell engineering, and perfect hydrogen fuel cells, which could have major implications for the economy, the environment, and the geopolitics of oil.… read more
Top KurzweilAI.net News of 2001
January 21, 2002 by Ray Kurzweil, Amara D. Angelica
In its first year of operation, KurzweilAI.net has chronicled the notable news stories on accelerating intelligence. We’ve selected here the most important of those stories to document the key breakthroughs for 2001 in continued exponential growth of computation, communication, and other information-based technologies; comparable acceleration in efforts to reverse-engineer the human brain and other sources of the templates of intelligence; similar growth in our understanding of the information basis of biological processes; and the contributions of nanotechnology.… read more
Exponential Growth an Illusion?: Response to Ilkka Tuomi
September 13, 2003 by Ray Kurzweil
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Ray Kurzweil responds to Ilkka Tuomi’s essays, “The Lives and Death of Moore’s Law” and “Kurzweil, Moore, and Accelerating Change,” in which Tuomi challenges Kurzweil’s “law of accelerating returns” and the exponential growth of semiconductor technology.… read more
Gelernter, Kurzweil debate machine consciousness
December 6, 2006 by Rodney Brooks, Ray Kurzweil, David Gelernter
Are we limited to building super-intelligent robotic “zombies” or will it be possible and desirable for us to build conscious, creative, volitional, perhaps even “spiritual” machines? David Gelernter and Ray Kurzweil debated this key question at MIT on Nov. 30.… read more
Dear PC: R.I.P.
February 21, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil’s vision of the post-PC future includes nanobots and fully immersive virtual reality.… read more