Computers that truly understand language. New Google hire and accomplished inventor Ray Kurzweil recently described his “ambitious” current project at the search giant in an interview with Singularity Hub.

Kurzweil is hoping to leverage Google’s massive pool of resources and data to develop technology that would create truly intelligent computers that can understand human language on a deep level. He said that technology will answer our questions… read more

Appeal is to support the forming of a New Evolutionary Strategy for Humanity at the Second International Global Future 2045 Congress in New York, June 15-16.

Participants of the Second International Global Future 2045 (GF2045) Congress have appealed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to support the forming of a new evolutionary strategy for humanity and the Avatar Project of the 2045 Initiative.

The Open Letter to the UN… read more

I recently interviewed author and inventor Ray Kurzweil about his new book, How to Create A Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed. The 58-minute segment aired on December 1, 2 and 3 on the C-SPAN2 program After Words. The book’s thesis is that it is essentially possible to reverse-engineer the human brain to create a computer mind that works like yours and mine. The advantages of such a creation, Kurzweil… 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

If you’ve ever seen any of The Terminator films, you’re familiar with Skynet, the self-aware computing system at odds with humanity. But, even though a perception persists that machines can increasingly solve complex problems and process large amounts of data on their own, machine learning experts say humans still play a very important role.

Human intervention is critical at multiple layers, from choosing the algorithms to apply to… read more

Robots! That’s the topic of my latest piece in the current issue of the magazine. I’ve blogged on this subject a fair amount, but this is the first time I’ve tried to put everything together and explain what I really think robotics is likely to mean over the next few decades.

Some of you are going to nod right along, some of you are going to think I’m… read more

Ray Kurzweil and his son, Ethan, are both Silicon Valley futurists — though they have different ways of tackling what they perceive is coming next. Ray Kurzweil, 65 years old, joined Google Inc. in December after spending nearly five decades pioneering everything from machines that can read text aloud to the blind to a music synthesizer that sounds like a real piano.

Among his theories, which aren’t universally accepted… read more