A technology expert with a track record of predicting big changes in industries has made some startling new predictions in a new book.
Google's Ray Kurzweil famously predicted the age of the iPhone and that by 1998 a computer would be able to beat someone at chess.
In his new book, “The Singularity is Near,” Kurzweil predicts that by 2045, humans will have completely merged with AI, turning them into immortal cyborgs.
He also predicts that advances in AI will make it possible to bring loved ones back to life and connect brains to cloud technology, ushering in a “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, “A baby born today will have just graduated from college by the time the singularity occurs.”
“Ultimately, through nanotechnology, these trends will lead to directly extending our brains with layers of virtual neurons in the cloud.”
“This is how we merge with AI. This is the most exciting year in history.”
He said recent advances in AI, such as ChatGPT, confirm the predictions he made in his first book, The Singularity Is Near, back in 2005, and that “the trajectory is clear.”
His most shocking predictions are:
The Dead Will Come Back to Life
Kurzweil believes that AI technology has the potential to “raise” the dead, first in the form of human simulations and then physically bringing them back to life.
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Kurzweil's attempt to use AI to “resurrect” his father, who died when he was 22, began more than 10 years ago.
Kurzweil created a replicant of his father by feeding his letters, essays and songs into an artificial intelligence system.
“We are already creating, through our digital activities, very rich records of what we feel,” he writes.
“And over the next decade, the technology to record, store and organize this information will advance rapidly.”
Kurzweil predicts that “highly realistic” non-biological recreations of humans, and then living organisms, will be possible by the end of the 2020s.
He writes: “Eventually, replicants may come to inhabit cybernetically enhanced biological bodies made from the DNA of the original human.”
Kurzweil predicts that humanity will move towards artificial bodies “beyond what biology allows,” and that it will be possible to create copies of humans by the 2040s.
Humans will become a million times smarter
Kurzeil says that with the advent of human-level AI and brain chips like Elon Musk's Neuralink, we are on the verge of entering a “fifth age” of intelligence, where humans will merge with machines.
Kurzweil believes that after 2029, human intelligence will increase millions of times as humans connect directly to machines.
He writes: “A key capability of the 2030s will be to connect the higher regions of our neocortex to the cloud, a direct extension of our thinking.”
“This will make AI an extension of ourselves, not a competitor.”
Immortality begins in 2030
Kurzweil predicts that by 2030, humanity will begin to achieve “escape velocity” to immortality.
This will be borne out by major advances in medicine.
He writes that by 2030, AI biological simulators will be able to conduct clinical trials in hours instead of years, leading to new medicines and treatments for longer life.
Backup technology, which he calls the “fourth bridge,” allows humans to use technology to “back up themselves.”
“The long-term goal,” he writes, “is medical nanorobots, built from diamondoid components and equipped with sensors, manipulators, computers, communicators, and possibly energy sources.”
Life becomes cheaper and easier
Kurzweil believes technology will revolutionize everyday life, from producing building components with the help of 3D printers to robots being able to build skyscrapers at incredible speeds.
Other breakthroughs with AI will drive down the price of solar power through breakthroughs in solar power, lowering energy prices.
Meanwhile, advances in robotic mining will bring down the cost of extracting raw materials.
He writes: “By the 2030s, what we consider luxurious levels of living today will be relatively inexpensive.”
Entertainment that lets you “feel” every thought
Kurzweil believes that the human brain will be upgraded through “nanotechnology,” enabling new forms of entertainment.
Kurzweil says that entertainment ultimately results in “you bringing every thought that's in someone else's head into your own head.”
The brain, he writes, would be upgraded with “harmless nanoscale electrodes that would be inserted into the brain through the bloodstream.”
“Freed from the confines of the skull,” he writes, “and able to operate on a substrate millions of times faster than biological tissue, our minds will grow exponentially, ultimately expanding our intelligence millions of times.”
