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Ray Kurzweil recently predicted that humans will achieve immortality in eight years
A former Google engineer has made a strong realization that humans will achieve immortality within eight years — and 86 percent of his 147 predictions are correct.
Ray Kurzweil spoke to the YouTube channel Adagioin which he discusses the expansion in genetics, nanotechnology and robotics that he believes will lead to age-reversing “nanobots.”
These tiny robots repair damaged cells and tissues that deteriorate as the body ages and make us immune to diseases such as cancer.
Predictions that such a feat is achievable by 2030 have been met with excitement and skepticism as curing all deadly diseases seems far out of reach.
Kurzweil was hired by Google in 2012 to “work on new machine learning and language processing projects,” but he had been making predictions about technology advancements long before that.
In 1990 he predicted that the world’s best chess player would lose to a computer by 2000, which happened in 1997 when Deep Blue defeated Gary Kasparov.
Kurzweil made another surprising prediction in 1999: He said that by 2023, a $1,000 laptop would have the computing power and storage capacity of a human brain.
This will be possible thanks to the expansion of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics, which he says will lead to age-reversing ‘nanobots’
Now the former Google engineer believes technology will become so powerful that it will help people live forever, in what’s known as the singularity.
Singularity is a theoretical point where artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and changes the path of our evolution, Lifeboat reports.
Kurzweil, an author who describes himself as a futurist, predicted that technological singularity would occur in 2045, with AI passing a valid Turing test by 2029.
It is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior similar to or indistinguishable from that of a human
He said that machines are already making us more intelligent, and connecting them to our neocortex allows people to think smarter.
Contrary to what some fear, he believes that implanting computers in our brains will make us better.
“We’re getting more neocortex, we’re getting funnier, we’re getting better at music. We’re getting sexier,” he said.
“We’re really going to give more examples of all the things we appreciate in people.”
Rather than a vision of the future in which machines take over humanity, Kurzweil believes we will create a human-machine synthesis that will make us better.
The concept of nanomachines inserted into the human body has been in science fiction for decades.
These tiny robots repair damaged cells and tissues that deteriorate as the body ages and make us immune to diseases such as cancer
In Star Trek, tiny molecular robots called nanites were used to help repair damaged cells in the body.
More than a decade ago, the US National Science Foundation predicted that “network-enhanced telepathy” — the transmission of thoughts over the Internet — would be practical by the 2020s.
“Ultimately it will affect everything,” Kurzweil said.
“We will be able to meet the physical needs of all people. We are going to expand our minds and give examples of these artistic qualities that we appreciate.’
The process started centuries ago with simple devices such as glasses and ear trumpets that could dramatically improve people’s lives.
Then came better machines, such as hearing aids and devices that could save lives, including pacemakers and dialysis machines.
By the second decade of the 21st century, we’ve become accustomed to lab-grown organs, genetic surgery, and designer babies.