May the Smartest Machine Win: Warfare in the 21st Century
August 6, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
How technology is changing the ways in which wars are fought, 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
Nanotechnology Dangers and Defenses
March 27, 2006 by Ray Kurzweil
To avoid dangers such as unrestrained nanobot replication, we need relinquishment at the right level and to place our highest priority on the continuing advance of defensive technologies, staying ahead of destructive technologies. An overall strategy should include a streamlined regulatory process, a global program of monitoring for unknown or evolving biological pathogens, temporary moratoriums, raising public awareness, international cooperation, software reconnaissance, and fostering values of liberty, tolerance, and respect for knowledge and diversity.… read more
National Inventor Hall of Fame Acceptance Remarks
September 22, 2002 by Ray Kurzweil
The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) inducted Ray Kurzweil on Sept. 21, 2002. Sponsored by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Hewlett-Packard, the ceremony recognized Kurzweil for the Kurzweil Reading Machine and a lifetime of invention, including the first “omni-font” optical character recognition (OCR), the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first full text-to-speech synthesizer, the first realistic-sounding electronic music synthesizer, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition.… read more
Online Chat with Ray Kurzweil and European Schoolnet
November 9, 2005 by Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil introduced 300 secondary-school students across Europe to robotics and AI in an interactive Internet chat set up by Xplora, the European gateway to science education.… read more
Our Bodies, Our Technologies: Ray Kurzweil’s Cambridge Forum Lecture (Abridged)
March 16, 2006 by Ray Kurzweil
In the 2020s, we’ll see nanobots, blood-cell-sized devices that can go inside the body and brain to perform therapeutic functions. But what happens when we have billions of nanobots inside the capillaries of our brains, non-invasively, widely distributed, expanding human intelligence, or providing full-immersion virtual reality?… read more
Promise And Peril
April 9, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
Bill Joy wrote a controversial article in Wired advocating “relinquishment” of research on self-replicating technologies, such as nanobots. In this rebuttal, originally published in Interactive Week, Ray Kurzweil argues that these developments are inevitable and advocates ethical guidelines and responsible oversight.… read more
Ray Kurzweil Q&A with Darwin Magazine
December 3, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
Machine consciousness is the subject of this dialog with Darwin Magazine.… read more
Ray Kurzweil responds to John Brockman’s “The Edge” Annual Question of 2007
February 4, 2007 by Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil responds to John Brockman’s The Edge Annual Question – 2007: WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT? WHY?… read more
Ray Kurzweil Responds to Richard Eckersley
February 3, 2006 by Ray Kurzweil
“Eckersley bases his romanticized idea of ancient life on communication and the relationships fostered by communication. But much of modern technology is directed at just this basic human need.”… read more
Ray Kurzweil’s Dangerous Idea: The near-term inevitability of radical life extension and expansion
January 17, 2006 by Ray Kurzweil
“What is your dangerous idea?” Over one hundred big thinkers answered this question, as part of The Edge’s Annual Question for 2006. Ray Kurzweil’s dangerous idea? We can achieve immortality in our lifetime.… read more
Raymond Kurzweil at ACM1
May 23, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
Raymond Kurzweil speaks at ACM1: Beyond Cyberspace about a future in which computers will appear to be conscious and the distinction between humans and machines will gradually disappear.… read more
Reflections on S1m0ne
August 25, 2002 by Ray Kurzweil
The movie Simone presents an “unrealistic notion of how technology is introduced to the world,” says Ray Kurzweil in this review. He examines this portrayal from the perspective of his own transformation at the TED conference into Ramona, the state of the art for real-time virtual personality transformation two years ago.… 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