Ray Kurzweil Predicts That the Singularity Will Take Place by 2045

Ed Lauder

March 17, 2017

3 Min Read

Google’s Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, has predicted that the singularity will happen by 2045, but stressed that it's nothing to be scared of.

Ray Kurzweil is a big name in the tech world, being Google's Director of Engineering will do that, however, he's also made a name for himself for being pretty good when it comes to predictions. He claims that out of the 147 predictions he's made since the 1990s, 86% of them turned out to be correct. He made yet another prediction at last week's SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, and this one probably trumps the rest.

During a Facebook Live stream with SXSW, Ray Kurzweil expressed his belief that AI will gain human-level intelligence by 2029. “I've been consistent that by 2029, computers will have human-level intelligence,” he said.

He continued, “That leads to computers having human intelligence, our putting them inside our brains, connecting them to the cloud, expanding who we are. Today, that’s not just a future scenario,” Kurzweil said. “It’s here, in part, and it’s going to accelerate.”

He then elaborated his thoughts in a communication to Futurism, where he actually predicted that the singularity will happen by 2045. "2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence. I have set the date 2045 for the ‘Singularity’ which is when we will multiply our effective intelligence a billion fold by merging with the intelligence we have created," wrote Ray Kurzweil.

The singularity refers to the point in time when all the advancements in modern technology, including AI, results in machines becoming smarter than us humans. It sounds pretty terrifying, like something out of a science-fiction movie where the humans take on the machines in an apocalyptic war, however Kurzweil doesn't see it that way.

“That’s not realistic,” Kurzweil said during his Facebook Live interview. “We don’t have one or two AIs in the world. Today we have billions.” He continued, “What’s actually happening is [machines] are powering all of us.”

“They’re making us smarter. They may not yet be inside our bodies, but, by the 2030s, we will connect our neocortex, the part of our brain where we do our thinking, to the cloud,” he said

He also spoke of how humans merging with AI will actually result in us becoming funnier, smarter and even sexier. “We’re going to get more neocortex, we’re going to be funnier, we’re going to be better at music. We’re going to be sexier,” Kurzweil said. “We’re really going to exemplify all the things that we value in humans to a greater degree.”

“Ultimately, it will affect everything,” Kurzweil said. “We’re going to be able to meet the physical needs of all humans. We’re going to expand our minds and exemplify these artistic qualities that we value.”

You can watch the full interview in the video below.

Image courtesy of nrkbeta

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