A technology expert with a history of predicting radical changes in the industry has made several stunning new predictions in a new book.
Google’s Ray Kurzweil predicted the era of the iPhone and that a computer could beat someone at chess by 1998.
In his new book, “The Singularity is Nearer,” Kurzweil predicts that humans will fully merge with AI, becoming immortal cyborgs, by 2045.
He also predicts that advances in AI will make it possible to resurrect our loved ones and connect our brains to cloud technology, in what he calls the “fifth epoch” of human intelligence.
The Singularity is the idea that artificial intelligence (AI) will eventually surpass human intelligence, fundamentally changing human existence.
Kurzweil writes: “Babies born today will be fresh out of college when the Singularity occurs.
“Ultimately, nanotechnology will enable these trends to culminate by directly extending our brains with layers of virtual neurons in the cloud.
“This way we will merge with AI. These are the most exciting years in all of history.”
He says recent advances 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.”
His most shocking predictions are below:
The dead will come back to life
Kurzweil believes AI technology offers the promise of “bringing back” the dead – first as simulations of a person, and then physically bringing them back to life.
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Kurzweil’s attempts to “bring back” his father – who died when he 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: “We are already creating, through our digital activities, extremely rich records of how we think and what we feel.
“And over the course of this decade, our technologies for recording, storing and organizing this information will advance rapidly.”
By the late 2020s, Kurzweil expects “highly realistic” non-biological reconstructions of people – and then living bodies.
He writes: “Eventually, replicants could even be housed in cybernetically augmented biological bodies, developed from the original person’s DNA.”
Kurzweil predicts that humans will evolve into artificial bodies “more advanced than biology allows” – and that by the 2040s it will be possible to make a copy of a person.
Humans will become a million times smarter
Kurzeil claims we are about to enter the “fifth epoch” of intelligence, where humans merge with machines – triggered by the arrival of human-level AI and brain chips like Elon Musk’s Neuralink.
Kurzweil estimates that in the years after 2029, human intelligence will be multiplied by millions through the direct connection of humans to machines.
He writes: “A key capability in the 2030s will be to connect the higher reaches of our neocortices to the cloud, which will directly extend our thinking.
“In this way, rather than being a competitor, AI will become an extension of ourselves.”
Immortality begins in 2030
People will begin reaching “escape velocity” to immortality by 2030, Kurzweil predicts.
These advances will be supported by enormous strides in health care.
He writes that by 2030, AI biological simulators will run clinical trials in hours rather than years, leading to new drugs and longevity treatments.
Relief technologies he describes as the “fourth bridge,” where humans can “support themselves” using technologies.
He writes: “The long-term goal is medical nanorobots. These will be made from diamondoid parts with built-in sensors, manipulators, computers, communicators, and possibly power sources.
Life will become cheaper – and easier
Kurzweil believes the technology will revolutionize everyday life, with robots capable of building skyscrapers incredibly quickly with the help of 3D printers producing building parts.
Further AI-based technological advances will drive down the price of solar energy, particularly in the field of photovoltaics, thereby reducing the price of energy.
At the same time, advances in robotic mining will reduce the costs of extracting raw materials.
He writes: “By the 2030s, it will be relatively inexpensive to live at a level that is considered luxurious today.
Entertainment where we “feel” every thought
The human brain will be enhanced by “nanotechnology,” which will enable new forms of entertainment, Kurzweil believes.
Kurzweil claims that entertainment will eventually put “every thought in someone’s head into yours.”
He writes that brains will be enhanced with “harmless nanometer electrodes inserted into the brain through the bloodstream.”
He writes: “Freed from the confines of our skulls and able to process information on a substrate millions of times faster than biological tissue, our minds will be able to grow exponentially, multiplying our intelligence by millions of times.”
