A technology expert with a track record of predicting major changes in the industry has made some striking new predictions in a new book.
Google’s Ray Kurzweil predicted the iPhone era and that a computer would beat someone at chess in 1998.
In his new book, The Singularity is Nearer, Kurzweil predicts that humans will completely merge with AI and become immortal cyborgs by 2045.
He also predicts that advances in AI will make it possible to bring loved ones back to life and connect our brains to cloud technology, what he calls the “fifth age” of human intelligence.
The Singularity is the idea that artificial intelligence (AI) will eventually surpass human intelligence and fundamentally change human existence.
Kurzweil writes: ‘Babies born today will have just graduated from college when the Singularity happens.
‘Ultimately, nanotechnology will ensure that these trends result in directly augmenting our brains with layers of virtual neurons in the cloud.
“This is how we will merge with AI. These are the most exciting years in history.”
He says recent breakthroughs in AI, such as ChatGPT, show that his 2005 prediction in his first book, “The Singularity is Near,” was correct and that “the trajectory is clear.”
Below are his most shocking predictions:
The dead will come back to life
Kurzweil believes that AI technology holds the promise of “bringing back” the dead, first in the form of simulations that mimic a person, and then physically back to life.
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Kurzweil’s efforts to “bring back” his father, who died when Kurzweil was 22, using AI began more than 10 years ago.
Kurzweil created a replica of his father by feeding an artificial intelligence system his father’s letters, essays, and musical compositions.
He writes: ‘Through our digital activities we already create enormously rich records of how we think and what we feel.
“And over this decade, our technologies for capturing, storing and organizing this information will evolve rapidly.”
By the late 2020s, Kurzweil expects “highly realistic” non-biological reconstructions of humans—and then of living bodies.
He writes: ‘Eventually, replicants could even be housed in cybernetically enhanced biological bodies grown from the original person’s DNA.’
Kurzweil predicts that humans will develop artificial bodies that are “advanced beyond what biology allows,” and that by 2040 it will be possible to create a copy of a human being.
People will become a million times smarter
Kurzeil says we are on the cusp of entering the “fifth age” of intelligence, where humans merge with machines. This is being brought about by the advent of human-level artificial intelligence and brain chips like Elon Musk’s Neuralink.
Kurzweil predicts that after 2029, human intelligence will increase millions of times as people connect directly to machines.
He writes: ‘A major opportunity in the 2030s will be to connect the upper regions of our neocortex to the cloud, which will directly extend our thinking.
‘In this way, AI does not become a competitor, but an extension of ourselves.’
Immortality begins in 2030
Kurzweil predicts that humans will reach “escape velocity” for immortality by 2030.
This will be accompanied by great leaps forward in healthcare.
He writes that by 2030, biological AI simulators will run clinical trials in hours instead of years, leading to new drugs and treatments that extend lifespan.
Assistive technologies, which he calls the “fourth bridge,” enable people to “assist” themselves using technologies.
He writes: ‘The long-term goal is medical nanorobots, made of diamond-shaped parts with sensors, manipulators, computers, communicators and possibly power sources on board.
Life is getting cheaper – and easier
Kurzweil believes that technology will revolutionize everyday life, with robots able to build skyscrapers at lightning speed using 3D printers to produce building components.
Other breakthroughs in AI will drive down the price of solar energy, for example breakthroughs in photovoltaics, which will drive down the price of energy.
Meanwhile, breakthroughs in robotic extraction will reduce the cost of mining resources.
He writes: ‘In the 2030s, it will be relatively cheap to live at a level that is now considered luxurious.
Entertainment where we ‘feel’ every thought
Kurzweil believes that the human brain is being enhanced by “nanotechnology,” enabling new forms of entertainment.
Ultimately, according to Kurzweil, entertainment ensures that “every thought in someone’s head ends up in your head.”
He writes that brains are upgraded by ‘harmless nano-electrodes introduced into the brain via the bloodstream.’
He writes: ‘If we are freed from the constraints of our skulls and processing occurs on a substrate millions of times faster than biological tissue, our minds could grow exponentially and ultimately increase our intelligence millions of times over.’