Singularity Hub | Kurzweil defends his predictions again: Was he 86% correct?

January 4, 2011

Singularity Hub — January 4, 2011 | Aaron Saenz

This is a summary. Read original article in full here.

How would you grade yourself if you had a chance to write your own report card? Ray Kurzweil is giving himself a high B.

With his recent essay “How My Predictions Are Faring” the noted futurist reviews forecasts he made more than a decade ago for our current times. His predicted future is now the present, so it’s time to see how he did.

The report looks at 147 predictions that Kurzweil made in his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines, and goes on to briefly explore comments in The Age of Intelligent Machines (1990) as well as his more recent The Singularity is Near (2005)… I’ve read “How My Predictions Are Faring” and have drawn my own conclusions about Kurzweil’s prowess: If you’re pouring over each of the 147 statements and debating their accuracy then you’re probably wasting your time. When it comes to evaluating predictions, I’m not sure we’re doing it right. […]