Source: Variety — November 10, 2011 | Jeff Sneider, Justin Kroll
Sony has suspended pre-production on Roland Emmerich’s $175 million sci-fi epic “Singularity,” canceling several scheduled screen tests to give Emmerich time to develop the screenplay with co-writer Harald Kloser.
Source: Luke Ryan Blog — November 10, 2011 | Luke Ryan
Exponential. If you could sum up the complex concept of The Singularity into a single word it would be that word, Exponential. My introduction to The Singularity theory came from a TED video I watched some years ago that my father recommended featuring an eccentric genius named Raymond Kurzweil (below).
Ray talked a lot about the exponential growth of technology and how Moore’s law allowed his… read more
Source: The Boston Globe — November 16, 2011
A couple dozen actors, writers, politicians and scientists call Newton their current or former home:
Ray Kurzweil — He’s one of MIT’s most vocal and high-profile technology visionaries.… read more
Source: Time: Techland — November 21, 2011 | Allie Townsend
Exclusive: Futurist and singularity expert Ray Kurzweil will join best-selling author and Time senior writer Lev Grossman for a special keynote conversation to be held at this spring’s South By Southwest Interactive Festival.
What happens when the wits of machines surpass the intelligence of the human race? Some say we’ll upload our imaginations into computers, emerging as immortals of the digital space. Others warn that it will trumpet… read more
Source: Fast Company: Co.Exist — November 30, 2011 | Neal Ungerleider
Computing and mathematics legend Stephen Wolfram is worried about bigger problems than climate change or overpopulation. He just joined the Lifeboat Institute, a think tank devoted to ways of protecting humanity from deadly nanoweapons and rogue artificial intelligences.
The Singularity is a concept, popularized by Ray Kurzweil, that posits human nature will be fundamentally transformed by technology sometime in the not-too-distant future. In books such as The Singularity… read more
Source: PhysOrg — December 1, 2011 | Stuart Mason Dambrot
In his post-presentation press conference, Kurzweil was asked about the role of our evolutionarily-determined biological drives — and thereby motivation and emotion — as minds merge with machines and AI equals or surpasses human levels. Kurzweil noted that we have a remarkable ability to sublimate our drives, and we do so largely into innovation.
Since he sees the purpose of technology as the transcendence of our biological limitations, one… read more
Source: The Washington Post — December 2, 2011 | Vivek Wadhwa
Do people stop being creative as they reach middle age? Henry Ford introduced the Model T when he was 45. Sam Walton built Walmart in his mid-40s.
Some of the most creative people of the century were also not young. Ray Kurzweil published The Singularity Is Near in his 50s; Alfred Hitchcock directed Vertigo when he was 59; Frank Lloyd Wright built his architectural masterpiece, Fallingwater, when he was 68.… read more
Source: Scientific American — December 5, 2011 | Gary Stix
Ray Kurzweil and other so-called transhumanists have promised that in coming decades we will be able to transfer a digital copy of the trillions of connections among nerve cells in our brains into a computer. We would essentially reincarnate ourselves as non-biological beings that persist for eternity inside a laptop, on the endless links of the Internet or as avatars inside a television set. After achieving the ultimate copy and… read more
Source: The Daily Gleaner — December 9, 2011 | Tara Chislett
When it comes to the future, we need to change the way we think about innovation, says internationally renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil.
Speaking to a crowd of more than 500 people at the Fredericton Convention Centre — including more than 200 students from District 18 high schools and the University of New Brunswick — Kurzweil delivered the keynote address at the city’s first goFred X conference Thursday afternoon.… read more
Source: The Smart Set — December 14, 2011 | Stefany Anne Goldberg
This much is true. We do not want to die. And some say everything we do comes down to this. We look to fame, to children, to heaven, hoping all the while to grasp just a bit of immortality. We look to religion and we look to the occult, invisible solutions built on clouds and trust. We look to more tangible solutions as well. If we had a