A technology expert with experience in predicting radical industry changes has made several startling predictions in a new book.
Google’s Ray Kurzweil predicted the era of the iPhone and the fact that a computer would beat someone at chess in 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 enable us to resurrect loved ones and connect our brains to cloud technology, in what he calls the “fifth epoch” of human intelligence.
Google’s Ray Kurzweil believes immortality is just around the corner (Getty)
Singularity is the idea that artificial intelligence (AI) will eventually surpass human intelligence, fundamentally changing human existence.
Kurzweil writes: ‘Babies born today will barely be graduating from college when the Singularity occurs.
‘Over time, nanotechnology will allow these trends to culminate in the direct expansion of 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 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 as follows:
The dead will come back to life.
Kurzweil believes AI technology holds the promise of bringing the dead back to life, first in the form of simulations that replicate a person, and then by physically bringing them back to life.
Kurzweil’s attempts to “recover” his father (who died when Kurzweil was 22) using AI began more than 10 years ago.
Kurzweil created a replicant of his father by feeding an artificial intelligence system with his father’s letters, essays, and musical compositions.
He writes: ‘We are already creating through our digital activities enormously rich records of how we think and feel.
“And during this decade, our technologies for recording, storing and organizing this information will advance rapidly.”
Kurzweil hopes that by the late 2020s, “highly realistic” non-biological recreations of people (and later living bodies) will be possible.
He writes: ‘Over time, replicants could even be housed in cybernetically augmented biological bodies grown from the original person’s DNA.’
Kurzweil predicts that humans will move to 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 says we are on the cusp of entering the “fifth era” of intelligence, where man merges with machines, brought about by the arrival of human-level AI and brain chips like Elon Musk’s Neuralink.
Kurzweil believes that in the years after 2029, human intelligence will increase millions of times as humans connect directly with machines.
Technologies such as brain-computer interfaces will pave the way for a new era
He writes: ‘A key capability in the 2030s will be to connect the upper reaches of our neocortices to the cloud, which will directly extend our thinking.
‘In this way, instead of being a competitor, AI will become an extension of ourselves.’
Immortality begins in 2030
Kurzweil predicts that people will begin to reach “escape velocity” toward immortality by 2030.
This will be supported by huge advances in health care.
He writes that by 2030, AI biological simulators will conduct clinical trials in hours instead of years, leading to the development of new drugs and longevity treatments.
Supporting technologies he describes as the ‘fourth bridge’, where humans can ‘protect themselves’ through technologies.
He writes: ‘The long-term goal is medical nanorobots. These will be made of diamond pieces with built-in sensors, manipulators, computers, communicators and possibly power sources.
Life will be cheaper and easier
Kurzweil believes the technology will revolutionize daily life, with robots capable of building skyscrapers incredibly quickly with the help of 3D printers that produce building blocks.
Other AI-driven advances will reduce the price of solar energy through advances in photovoltaics, which will reduce the price of energy.
Meanwhile, advances in robotic extraction will reduce the costs of mining raw materials.
He writes: ‘In the 2030s it will be relatively cheap to live at a level that is considered luxurious today.
Entertainment where we “feel” every thought
Human brains will be enhanced by “nanotechnology,” enabling new forms of entertainment, Kurzweil believes.
Kurzweil says that entertainment will eventually put “every thought that’s in someone else’s head into yours.”
He writes that brains will be enhanced by “harmless nanometer-sized electrodes inserted into the brain through the bloodstream.”
He writes: “Freed from the confines of our skulls and processing on a substrate millions of times faster than biological tissue, our minds will be empowered to grow exponentially, ultimately expanding our intelligence millions of times.”