Source: Time — April 28, 1986 | Gordon W. Henry, Thomas McCarroll
Raymond Kurzweil has always been way ahead of his peers. When he was twelve years old and his junior high classmates were struggling with book reports, Kurzweil developed a computer software package that was distributed by IBM. At age 17 he won a Westinghouse Science Talent Search award for a computer program that could write music in the style of Mozart, Chopin and Beethoven.
Source: NY Daily News — December 13th, 2009 | Ray Kurzweil
As we approach the end of the first decade of the new millennium, let’s consider what life will be like a decade hence. Changes in our lives from technology are moving faster and faster. The telephone took 50 years to reach a quarter of the U.S. population. Search engines, social networks and blogs have done that in just a few years time. Consider that Facebook started as… read more
Source: The Wall Street Journal: Japan — March 4, 2011 | Misako Hida
In 2045, artificial intelligence (AI) will come to dominate the planet. Computers will surpass human intelligence — this is the “Singularity.” Limits like biological aging and disease will be surpassed — even death will no longer be seen as a restriction to human life. Leading futurist, inventor, entrepreneur, and best-selling author Ray Kurzweil (63) is confident that [...]
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: Slate — March 12, 2012 | Katherine Goldstein
On Monday at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, Ray Kurzweil, the prolific author, scientist, and futurist, presented a keynote conversation with Time magazine columnist Lev Grossman to discuss, in the broadest terms, his vision of the future, including augmented-reality glasses, 3D printing airplanes, and reforming our education system.
Here are three of his most interesting predictions.
1) Kurzweil, a long-time advocate of extreme human longevity, says… read more
Source: Publishers Weekly — October 22, 2012
Bringing together contemporary theories and research in cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence, Kurzweil (The Singularity Is Near) provides insight into how the human brain functions, while speculating on the possibilities and philosophical implications of creating a nonbiological mind.
Underlying this analysis is the Pattern Recognition Theory of Mind, a process in the neocortex, the seat of higher brain functions such as perception, memory, and language —… read more
Source: The Register — December 16, 2012 | Simon Sharwood
Futurist, artificial intelligence expert and inventor Ray Kurzweil will join Google as its director of engineering. Kurzweil’s profile is such that it was he — and not his new employer — who announced the new gig, and on his own website to boot.
Kurzweil also says he feels Google is his kind of place to work, and not just for the free food. Just what Kurzweil’s arrival… read more
Source: San Francisco Sentinel — March 28, 2013
“The restless genius” (Wall Street Journal) Ray Kurzweil comes to Cal Performances’ Wheeler Auditorium on Saturday, April 13 at 8:00 p.m. He has been nicknamed the “rightful heir to Thomas Edison” by Forbes for making cutting-edge technological advances including the first flatbed scanner, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, and the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano.
In addition to his… read more
Source: Cambridge Healthtech Institute — May 13, 2013 | Kevin Davies, PhD
Rather than reflect on the ups and downs of the past 11 years, let me simply lay out some of my most vivid memories from my perch at Bio-IT World:
Best Keynote: Lander in 2002? Ray Kurzweil? Stephen Wolfram? Venter, Collins, Berners-Lee? I can’t pick. But I would give special commendation to BioTeam cofounder Chris Dagdigian’s annual unofficial fourth keynote, “Trends from the Trenches.” [...]
Source: Forbes — May 27, 2009 | Courtney Boyd Myers
So you want to live forever? Ray Kurzweil will tell you how. The life and work of the futurist and inventor was the subject of a film at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Barry Ptolemy’s Transcendent Man. When he was in his early 20s, Kurzweil watched his father lose a battle with heart disease. The experience spurred his deeply rooted desire to conquer death. He’s received White… read more