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Acclaimed futurist and computer scientist Raymond Kurzweil thinks humans are on the cusp of extending their lifespans to nearly a millennium through the merger of biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and nanobots. Kurzweil, a recipient of the 1999 Presidential National Medal of Technology and Innovation, envisions a future where human longevity is drastically extended, potentially allowing individuals to live up to 1,000 years. In his latest book, The Singularity is Nearer, and a recent essay published by Wired, Kurzweil outlines his belief that the convergence of new, disruptive technologies will lead to significant advancements in life extension, surpassing the oldest verified natural...

Ray Kurzweil, Google's chief futurist, laid out what he thinks the next few decades will look like in an interview with Playboy. Kurzweil is one of the biggest believers in The Singularity, the moment when humans — with the aid of technology —will supposedly live forever. He's chosen the year 2045 because, according to his calculations, "The nonbiological intelligence created in that year will reach a level that’s a billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today." But even before 2045, Kurzweil thinks we could begin the deathless process. "I believe we will reach a point around 2029 when...

That's the prediction of Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google (GOOG), who spoke Wednesday at the Exponential Finance conference in New York. Kurzweil predicts that humans will become hybrids in the 2030s. That means our brains will be able to connect directly to the cloud, where there will be thousands of computers, and those computers will augment our existing intelligence. He said the brain will connect via nanobots -- tiny robots made from DNA strands. "Our thinking then will be a hybrid of biological and non-biological thinking," he said. The bigger and more complex the cloud, the more advanced...

Ray Kurzweil, the prominent inventor and futurist, can't wait to get nanobots into his brain. In his view, these devices will be equipped with a variety of sensors and stimulators and will communicate wirelessly with computers outside of the body. In addition to providing unprecedented insight into brain function at the cellular level, brain-penetrating nanobots would provide the ultimate virtual reality experience. In an interview with GOOD magazine, Kurzweil says: "By the late 2020s, nanobots in our brain, that will get there noninvasively, through the capillaries, will create full-immersion virtual-reality environments from within the nervous system. So if you want...

Bill Hemmer interviews Ray Kurzweil about his new documentary. Video Link

Chemists claim to have created the world's first DNA molecule made almost entirely of artificial parts. The finding could lead to improvements in gene therapy, futuristic nano-sized computers, and other high-tech advances, the Japanese researchers say.

At the recent World Science Festival in New York City, Ray Kurzweil outlined why he is certain that the future isn’t as dreary as it’s been painted, and why we are closer to the incredible than we think: Exponential upward curves can be deceptively gradual in the beginning. But when things start happening, they happen fast. Here are a selection of his predicted trajectories for these “miracles” based on his educated assessment of where science and technology is at in the present. · Within 5 years the exponential progress in nanoengineering will make Solar power cost-competitive with fossil fuels ·...

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted. Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent said engineer Ray Kurzweil. He said machines and humans would eventually merge through devices implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health. "It's really part of our civilisation," Mr Kurzweil said. "But that's not going to be an alien invasion of intelligent machines to displace us." Machines were already doing hundreds of things humans used to do, at human levels of intelligence or better,...

Human race will 'split into two different species' The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist. 100,000 years into the future, sexual selection will mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed. The alarming prediction comes from evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry from the London School of Economics, who says that the human race will have reached its physical peak by the year 3000. Go to the link in the header/excerpt for more, or the link in the...

“By responsible use of science, technology, and other rational means we shall eventually manage to become posthuman.”                                                                                                                  —Nick Bostrom“The moral challenge of transhumanism will transcend those of abortion and euthanasia. For this reason, the pro-life movement must become the pro-human movement.”                                                                                                           —Nigel M. Cameron Cryonics. Neural implants. Designer babies. Welcome to the future of transhumanism. This energetic movement, comprising thousands of adherents, actively promotes the enhancement of humans via cybernetics, genetics, medicine, surgery, nanotechnology, and a full panoply of other scientific advancements. This enhancement would, according to Nick Bostrom’s “Transhumanist Declaration,” seek to advocate “the moral right...

The rate of technological progress is about to shift into high gear, some futurists say. Are you ready to take advantage of the business opportunities? If Ray Kurzweil is right, the business landscape - indeed, the entire human race - is about to be transformed beyond all recognition. Kurzweil is a renowned computer scientist and inventor (he built the first flatbed scanner). And no less a figure than Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has called Kurzweil the greatest thinker on artificial intelligence alive today. So when he talks, it's worth paying attention. Here's the question Kurzweil is asking these days: What...

Immortality is within our grasp . . . In Fantastic Voyage, high-tech visionary Ray Kurzweil teams up with life-extension expert Terry Grossman, M.D., to consider the awesome benefits to human health and longevity promised by the leading edge of medical science--and what you can do today to take full advantage of these startling advances. Citing extensive research findings that sound as radical as the most speculative science fiction, Kurzweil and Grossman offer a program designed to slow aging and disease processes to such a degree that you should be in good health and good spirits when the more extreme...

The Stanford University Symbolic Systems Program and the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence announced today the Singularity Summit at Stanford, a one-day event free to the public, to be held Saturday, May 13, 2006 at Stanford Memorial Auditorium, Stanford, California. The event will bring together leading futurists and others to examine the implications of the "Singularity" -- a hypothesized creation of superintelligence as technology accelerates over the coming decades -- to address the profound implications of this radical and controversial scenario. "The Singularity will be a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its...

Options for a coming singularity include self-destruction of civilization, a positive singularity, a negative singularity (machines take over), and retreat into tradition. Our urgent goal: find (and avoid) failure modes, using anticipation (thought experiments) and resiliency -- establishing robust systems that can deal with almost any problem as it arises. In order to give you pleasant dreams tonight, let me offer a few possibilities about the days that lie ahead—changes that may occur within the next twenty or so years, roughly a single human generation. Possibilities that are taken seriously by some of today's best minds. Potential transformations of human...

If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it. Indeed one of the reasons for our electoral failure is that people believe too many Conservatives have become socialists already. Britain's progress towards socialism has been an alternation of two steps forward with half a step back. If every Labour Government is prepared to reverse every Tory measure, while Conservative Governments accept nearly all socialist measures as being “the will of the people,” the end result is only too plain....

SINGULARITY: UBIQUITY INTERVIEWS RAY KURZWEIL [Ray Kurzweil is one of the world's leading inventors, thinkers and futurists. His latest book is the just-published "The Singularity Is Near."] UBIQUITY: How is the new book doing? KURZWEIL: Very well -- it's in its fourth printing, and has been number one both in science and in philosophy on Amazon. UBIQUITY:: It's an amazing, magisterial piece of work. KURZWEIL: Thanks, I appreciate that. UBIQUITY:: Why don't you talk a little bit about the notion of "singularity"? Set the premise for us. KURZWEIL: Sure. It's actually a complicated premise, but there are several key ideas....

Praised as the Thomas Edison of the 21st century, Ray Kurzweil was selected as one of "16 revolutionaries who made America," along with the great inventors of the past two centuries. Forbes magazine called him "the ultimate thinking machine" and The Wall Street Journal dubbed him "the restless genius." Kurzweil is in the National Inventors Hall of Fame, With 12 honorary doctorates and the world's largest prize for innovation - the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT award. Kurzweil, now 57, published what is arguably the most blogged-about book of 2005, a 640-page blockbuster: "The Singularity Is Near," a road map to "a unique...

At the onset of the twenty-first century, humanity stands on the verge of the most transforming and the most thrilling period in its history. It will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged, as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity. For over three decades, the great inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic...

In his new book, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—And What It Means to Be Human, (Random House, 2005), author Joel Garreau describes research so cutting edge it seems mind-boggling: • A telekinetic monkey at Duke University in North Carolina uses its mind to move a robotic arm 600 miles (a thousand kilometers) away in Cambridge, Massachusetts. • At a Pentagon R-and-D facility in Virginia, program managers aim to create the ultimate warriors—soldiers that can fight without sleeping, tell their bodies to stop bleeding, and regrow lost hands and limbs. Garreau notes that regular...

Machine Dreams When software runs inside our brains, what will happen to us? Ray Kurzweil, who helped invent the IT present, explains to Web Editorial Director Art Jahnke how humans fit into the IT future. You may not like it. Ray Kurzweil grew up in Queens, N.Y., where, he says, schoolwork was never so challenging that it kept him from doing what he really wanted to do: build computers. That was also the case at Kurzweil's next school, MIT, where the young student skipped so many classes to work on inventions that his classmates nicknamed him The Phantom. They should...