For 30 years Ray Kurzweil has been preaching the artificial intelligence gospel. As computers drive cars and play “Jeopardy,” are we on track to reach his cybertopia?

Andy Greenberg: You’ve predicted that by 2045 accelerating progress in technology means we’ll build a computer — the so-called singularity — powerful enough to let us upload and replicate our brains, essentially becoming immortal. Are we on schedule?

Ray Kurzweil: With… read more

Over the past three days,the TV show Jeopardy! featured a showdown between a clever IBM computer system called Watson and the two greatest Jeopardy! champions. Watson won handily. It won the preliminary practice round, tied Monday’s opening round, and won by large margins on Tuesday and Wednesday. The point has been made: Watson can compete at the championship level—and is making it more difficult for anyone to argue that there… read more

Meet Watson, a talking supercomputer…promise of astonishing new artificial intelligence technology…Squadrons of pilotless drones may soon be joined on the ground by a new warrior breed of remotecontrolled robot fighter.

Ray Kurzweil, a leading U.S. authority on artificial intelligence, agreed with Hawking that human intelligence was “not getting better. [...] Note: This article is available only with subscription.