Last week, Paul Allen and a colleague challenged the prediction that computers will soon exceed human intelligence. Now Ray Kurzweil, the leading proponent of the “Singularity,” offers a rebuttal.

Although Paul Allen paraphrases my 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near, in the title of his essay (cowritten with his colleague Mark Greaves), it appears that he has not actually read the book. His only citation is to an… read more

Futurists like Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil have argued that the world is rapidly approaching a tipping point, where the accelerating pace of smarter and smarter machines will soon outrun all human capabilities. They call this tipping point the singularity, because they believe it is impossible to predict how the human future might unfold after this point.

Once these machines exist, Kurzweil and Vinge claim, they’ll possess… read more

[ Translated from German ] Ray Kurzweil works tirelessly to lead the way to eternal life. In 2029, predicts the American author and inventor, the human brain and computers will merge.

He is sixty-three years old and is looking forward to the next century and further. He swallows daily one hundred and fifty pills, can regularly refresh intravenously, toughens his body in the gym and takes only… read more

In math, a singularity is a point where a function demonstrates extreme behavior. The Singularity, as defined by Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil, will occur with the technological creation of superintelligence.

Such a world may be impossible to predict because us poor present-day humans are unable to comprehend what superintelligent entities will want or how they’ll behave to achieve their goals. [...]