Why is Google suddenly showing up in the robotics frontier, and how deep into the technology are they? This year Google has purchased 8 robotics companies. Google has also acquired 2 start-up companies: Bot & Dolly and AutoFuss. Also of interest is who Google is hiring into their robotic ranks.

This year, they hired machine learning expert Geoffrey Hinton and, last year, they hired famed inventor and artificial intelligence… read more

Key to any discussion about science-fiction movies, including Spike Jonze’s new film Her, is the concept of “singularity,” the predicted moment when human beings will create true artificial intelligence.

Writers like Vernon Vinge and Ray Kurzweil have predicted when this moment will occur (Vinge says 2030, while Kurzweil thinks it will be closer to 2045), but both agree that predicting the course of history after the singularity is impossible… read more

The same day three other clips for the film were released, highlighting the futurist angle of the film, which appears to have been modeled after the thoughts of singularity theorist Ray Kurzweil.

Freeman in one of the accompanying trailers states: “For two million years human beings have evolved more than any other species in existence.

“But what if all our knowledge and all our achievements could be… read more

The exciting trailer for new sci-fi flick Transcendence has been released. Playing scientist Will Caster in the movie, Depp’s character is desperate to reach immortality.

Caster attempts to transfer his knowledge, memories and emotions into an advanced computer programme to live on as artificial intelligence.

After the radiation claims Caster’s body, he survives as a virtual person — but his colleagues soon discover that they’re playing a… read more

Though Jonze did some research on some of the science of Her, he ultimately went with his heart. “Obviously, I love science fiction too,” he explained.

“I definitely was interested in things that Ray Kurzweil — American author, inventor, futurist, and a director of engineering at Google — writes about, and things like that.

“I made a lot of notes about artificial intelligence and watched a lot… read more

This week saw the beginning of the marketing campaign for 2014’s Transcendence, starring Johnny Depp as a seemingly megalomaniacal AI researcher. In the first teaser trailer, Depp narrates one of the more widely-held fears.

“Once online, a sentient machine will quickly overcome the limits of biology. In a short time, its analytical power will be greater than the collective intelligence of every person born in the history of the world.… read more

Ray Kurzweil is convinced the technological singularity is nigh. So is Johnny Depp’s character, it seems, in a Hollywood flick that’s due out in April.

This may be the singularity’s mainstream moment. Kurzweil is its preeminent latter-day apostle, and he was recently hired as an engineer by Google to work on hastening its arrival by teaching computers to understand English. Now we’ve got Captain Jack Sparrow explaining it in a… read more

Ray Kurzweil is one of the world’s leading inventors, thinkers, and futurists, with a 30-year track record of accurate predictions.

Called “the restless genius” by The Wall Street Journal and “the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes magazine, Kurzweil was selected as one of the top entrepreneurs by Inc. magazine, which described him as the “rightful heir to Thomas Edison.” Ray has written five national best-selling books. He is… read more

Is everyone pumped for the singularity? We’ll get to live forever and play in synth-pop bands with Ray Kurzweil. That’s where Transcendence comes in.

Directed by Christopher Nolan’s cinematographer Wally Pfister, it tells the story of a brilliant artificial intelligence researcher, Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp), who goes mad with power trying to achieve singularity. [...]

From one perspective, the future looks bright at the American Visionary Art Museum, where the exhibition “Human, Soul and Machine: The Coming Singularity” explores man’s tenuous relationship with technology.

According to the futurist author and inventor Ray Kurzweil — who is featured in a 79-minute documentary that loops continuously as part of the show and who will be honored with the museum’s Grand Visionary Award next… read more