Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity

Editor's Notes

• #3: Ray Kurzweil—the eccentric inventor, futurist, and guru-in-residence at Google—envisions a radical future in which humans and machines have fully merged. We will upload our minds to the cloud, he predicts, and constantly renew our bodies through intelligent nanobots released into our bloodstream. Kurzweil predicts that by 2029 we will have computers with intelligence comparable to that of humans (i.e., AGI), and that we will reach the singularity by 2045. As Raymond Kurzweil explains it, humans will eventually supplement their bodies or leave them behind altogether to join a world of vastly superior digital intelligences (Kurzweil 2005). In Kurzweil’s vision the object of design, the computer, takes over and becomes the designer. It is sometimes hard to tell whether those who propose the singularity see this future as utopian or dystopian.
• #9: Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-moores-law-in-action-1971-2019/
• #10: The integrated circuits described by Moore’s Law, he says, are just the latest technology in a larger, longer exponential trend in computing—one he thinks will continue. Kurzweil suggests integrated circuits will be followed by a new 3D molecular computing paradigm (the sixth) whose technologies are now being developed “When Moore’s Law reaches the end of its S-curve, now expected before 2020, the exponential growth will continue with three-dimensional molecular computing, which will constitute the sixth paradigm.” –Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near https://singularityhub.com/2016/03/08/will-the-end-of-moores-law-halt-computings-exponential-rise/
• #11: Source: https://singularityhub.com/2016/03/22/technology-feels-like-its-accelerating-because-it-actually-is/ This acceleration can be measured in the “returns” of the technology—such as speed, efficiency, price-performance, and overall “power”—which improve exponentially too.The acceleration of acceleration: It’s a bit like climbing a mountain and receiving a jetpack.Further, as a technology becomes more effective, it attracts more attention. The result is a flood of new resources—such as increased R&D budgets, recruiting top talent, etc.—which are directed to further improving the technology.This wave of new resources triggers a “second level” of exponential growth, where the rate of exponential growth (the exponent) also begins accelerating. Why does our technology keep doubling its power at regular intervals, displaying what mathematicians call exponential growth? Indeed, why is it happening not only in terms of transistor miniaturization (a trend known as Moore’s law), but also more broadly for computation as a whole (figure 2.8), for memory (figure 2.4) and for a plethora of other technologies ranging from genome sequencing to brain imaging? Ray Kurzweil calls this persistent doubling phenomenon “the law of accelerating returns.”
• #12: Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-moores-law-in-action-1971-2019/
• #13: Source: https://singularityhub.com/2016/04/05/how-to-think-exponentially-and-better-predict-the-future/