Ray Kurzweil

It’s likely you’ve never heard of Ray Kurzweil, though you will have almost undoubtedly seen or been affected by some of his inventions which including electronic keyboards, optical character recognition, and flatbed scanners among many others.

What makes him so significant and the reason I write about him here is because he is a futurist, and has been for more than 30 years. His predictions of technology and it’s changes have been fairly accurate over those 30 years. He’s written multiple books about these ideas beginning with “The Age of Intelligent Machines” in 1990, “The Age of Spiritual Machines” in 1998, and “The Singularity is Near” in 2005. One of his central themes is discussing technology and how the rate of technological rate is accelerating – and what the means for the future of technology and humans.

Kurzweil has captivating predictions for the future of mankind and of technology. His predictions have the potential to bring about massive change for the betterment of the planet and humans, and also brings about the potential reality of scenarios in ‘The Matrix’. Many people also point out the potential holes and flaws as well as the shear optimism and determination with which he believes in his predictions.  Regardless of whether he’s right or not, or even partially right, his ideas bring forth the reality of bigger questions coming for humans.

I won’t write too much here other than to introduce him and invoke your curiosity, but there are so many lines of thought and questioning that can be started and linked to some of his ideas. Here’s a few which you’ll read about by me in the coming weeks and months:

-          Moore’s Law

-          What does it mean to be human?

-          Immortality

-          What happens at the point when machine intelligence, or silicon intelligence, has more computing power than the human brain?

-          As a human being, how to comprehend and integrate the coming paradigm shift of intelligence.

-          Rate of change itself

-          How does spirituality and consciousness mesh with new intelligence?

-          How to balance technology and biology?

-          Nature’s intelligence

If you want a taste of his ideas without fully diving into his books, the movie 'Transcendent Man' is great start.

While the turning of the calendar to 2012 is still fresh and I look forward to the year ahead, I’m just as excited to see further down the road of what the next paradigm shifts might be. Stay tuned for more.