Futurist Ray Kurzweil, who spoke at the Smith Center in January, has predicted the imminent next stage of evolution — what he calls “the singularity.”

Here, humans will organically bond with their machines, and those machine/humans will become self-evolving, allowing us to transcend “the biological limitations of our brains.” 2029 being the year when he thinks this will begin.

And cosmologist Stephen Hawking has said the human… read more

Among nearly 30 biz execs skedded to participate in “Startup of the Year” as mentors include: Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group; Peter Diamandis, chairman and founder, X Prize Foundation; Carly Fiorina, chairman Good360 and former chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard; and Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google.

Company also highlighted WSJ Custom Studios, which will work with advertisers to create specialized video segments with integrated… read more

When Google announced in January that Ray Kurzweil would be joining the company, a lot of people wondered why the phenomenally accomplished entrepreneur and futurist would want to work for a large company he didn’t start.

Kurzweil’s answer: No one but Google could provide the kind of computing and engineering resources he needed to fulfill his life’s work. Ever since age 14, the 65-year-old inventor of everything from music synthesizers to… read more

Ray Kurzweil is a best-selling author, inventor, futurist, and Director of Engineering at Google. He has been described as “the restless genius” by The Wall Street Journal, and “the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes. Inc. magazine ranked him #8 among entrepreneurs in the United States, calling him the “rightful heir to Thomas Edison.”

PolicyMic editor Michael McCutcheon recently spoke with Ray Kurzweil about how technology and artificial intelligence can and should be used to address climate change and save the planet.… read more

It wasn’t until Ray Kurzweil’s 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near, however, that the public started becoming more interested in the theory. In his book, Kurzweil predicts the technological singularity is very much on the horizon and will occur by 2045.

In this new world, Kurzweil believes there will be no clear distinction between human and machine or real reality and virtual reality. In practical terms,… read more

Futurist Ray Kurzweil has some ambitious plans for search at Google.

Kurzweil, who joined Google at the end of last year as director of engineering, became famous for creating the first text-to-speech software. He’s also been called “the ultimate thinking machine.”

Now, he’s bringing his ultimate thinking machine to Google, where he’s working on a system that can truly understand natural language.

“Search has moved beyond just finding keywords,… read more

Ray Kurzweil’s official title at Google is director of engineering, but we’re starting to suspect Larry keeps him around as a kind of science-fictional mascot for the programmers. Case in point: This Wired Q&A, in which he reminds everyone of his belief that one day soon, death will hold no dominion over technologists.

After chatting about Steve Jobs (fun fact, it’s actually impossible to get into the Wired offices without passing a brief… read more

Google has always been an artificial intelligence company, so it really shouldn’t have been a surprise that Ray Kurzweil, one of the leading scientists in the field, joined the search giant late last year. Nonetheless, the hiring raised some eyebrows, since Kurzweil is perhaps the most prominent proselytizer of “hard AI,” which argues that it is possible to create consciousness in an artificial being.

Add to this Google’s revelation that it is… read more

What will the far future look like? For actor Will Smith and his son Jaden, the next generation could mark a “tipping point” for the environment.

For futurist Ray Kurzweil, solar power is the solution to our energy ills. But for a look at the really far future, turn to Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors.

He’s already thinking about spreading out from Earth to… read more

With massive amounts of computational power, machines can now recognize objects and translate speech in real time. Artificial intelligence is finally getting smart.

When Ray Kurzweil met with Google CEO Larry Page last July, he wasn’t looking for a job. A respected inventor who’s become a machine-intelligence futurist, Kurzweil wanted to discuss his upcoming book How to Create a Mind.

He told Page, who had read an early draft,… read more