Predicting the Future: An Interview with Ray Kurzweil

Its not about the predictions. Its about what the predictions represent. -Peter Diamandis

HOW TO PREDICT THE FUTURE

Ray Kurzweil has a decades-long track record for making accurate technological predictionsand
studying his methodology will help you understand how to contextualize emerging technologies
from a historical perspective. This methodology has five key parts:
1 Timing
Timing is the key to success. The most recognized inventors all share this critical
quality: they were in the right place with the right idea at the right time. While
you cant manufacture luck, you can build your new products and services years
before theyre technologically feasible. By doing so, youre better positioned to
catch windows of opportunity as exponential technologies continue their growth.
2 Price Performance and Capacity
Price and capacity are remarkably predictable, specifically as they relate to information
technology. Since we use the latest tools to build the next generation of tools, price
performance will continually increase.

Case Study:
Search Engines
In the early 80s, Ray Kurzweil saw Arpanet connect 1,000 scientists at first, and then more
every year. He predicted that by the late 1990s, wed see a worldwide web connecting
millions of people to vast knowledge resourcesand, most importantly, that web would
need search engines to find things. He didnt know exactly how these would come about,
but anticipating the need for search engines was a feasible prediction.

3 Moores Law
Moores Law is based on Intel cofounder Gordon Moores observation in a published paper that
the number of components per integrated circuit had doubled every year since the company
was founded in 1958. Moore modified that projection in 1975 to say that the price performance
would likely double every two years, and its proven accurate for over 50 years. What most
people dont understand, however, is that Moores Law just refers to integrated circuits.
4 Law of Accelerating Returns
Ray Kurzweils Law of Accelerating Returns accounts for the exponential rate of all
technological growth, from 3D printing to biological technologies, communications
and material technologies. Following this law, technologys predictable exponential
growth will bring humans into the era that Kurzweil refers to as the singularity. We
wont experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century, says Kurzweil, it will be
more like 20,000 years of progress (at todays rate).
Predicting the future in an exponential way is counterintuitiveespecially when we humans are
wired to think linearly rather than exponentially.

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 Predicting the Future: An Interview with Ray Kurzweil

Case Study:
Genome Project
One of the important transformations in health and medicine is the Human Genome
Project. It has significantly grown our ability to understand, model, simulate and reprogram
our genetic code. It cost a billion dollars to sequence the first human genome, and now its
down to just $3,000. This price drop occurred because todays biotechnologies are 1,000
times more powerful than they were when the Human Genome Project ended in 2003.

5 Technical Parameters
Take a moment to examine the technical parameters that affect your business. List all of these
technologies, and study the plots of price performance and capacity for each. Where do these
technologies need to be for you to be highly successful nowand considering their growth
trajectory, where will they be in one, two and three years?

Case Study:
Mobile Phones
When emerging technologies first hit the market, their performance is often substandard.
Consider, for example, Siri on the iPhone: when it was first introduced, users had trouble
communicating with Siri in a meaningful fashion. A few years later, and not only does Siri
perform capably, it has competition from the likes of Google, Microsoft and Facebook.

THE SINGULARITY IS NEARER

Ray Kurzweils ultimate prediction is that by 2045, we will hit the singularity: a point at which
technology progresses so rapidly as to be beyond human comprehension. His thesis is based on our
neocortex, which can be modeled for machine learning algorithms and connected to the cloud to
enhance human intelligence a billionfold.
Neocortex
Two million years ago, we evolved to have larger foreheads with an additional
cortex called the neocortex. This 20% addition to our brains operates at the top of
the hierarchy, which accounts for our higher-level thinking abilities. It has enabled us
to develop attributes that no other animal experiences, including language, humor,
and music.
Kurzweil advocates that the neocortex contains 300 million general pattern recognition modules
responsible for human thought. If a digitized version of the neocortex were used to create artificial
intelligence, the resulting AI system would be more capable than the human brain. These AIs would
require massive computational powerand according to the Law of Accelerating Returns, continued
exponential growth will eventually yield the hardware well need to build these artificial brains.
A recent explosion of neuroscientific evidence backs this thesis. In How to Create a Mind, Kurzweil
writes of research that the neocortex is actually broken into modules of 100 neurons300 million
modules in total.

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 Predicting the Future: An Interview with Ray Kurzweil

When you use up your 300 million modules, you dont generate more. To learn something
new, you must forget something old. And because most of us fill up our modules by our
teenage years, we have some important decisions to make regarding the information we
choose to retain.
Kurzweil noted that when he was 12, he likely had
The Society of Mind
10,000 modules dedicated to learning the cross
bar in a capital A. Because he doesnt need that Marvin Minsky uses the metaphor The
many modules dedicated to that specific task, Society of Mind, which is the title of one
he says that hes probably pruned those down to of his books. It explains that if you have
about 50 modules. a mind thats cooperative, where all the
subsystems are working well together, you
Some people are more willing to give up their
can accomplish new things. If they are at
old information more easily than others, and
war with each other, however, it will be more
thats actually the key to creativity. Many people
difficult. To learn new things effectively, you
intentionally hold onto their view of the world and
must let go of old things.
the concepts they have and dont want to learn
anything new.
Machine Learning
An important part of proving Kurzweils thesis is modeling the neocortex for artificial intelligence.
Just as we have a hierarchy of neural processing, so too do we have different levels in a machine
learning algorithm. The first level organizes the neurons into a network, which to some extent are
able to abstract or generalize information presented to them. With each increasing level, however, it
becomes more abstract and more general than the one before, so a humanlike quality like humor
would be higher upin this example, Kurzweil estimates around level 20.
Today, the field of AI can process at about level 10 or 12 up from a level 3 just a
few years ago. Machine learning models now operate under higher levels of
abstraction; for example, they can now differentiate from a dog and a cat.
Connecting to the Cloud
Ray Kurzweils singularity prediction envisions us becoming hybrids of biological and
non-biological thinking by means of artificial intelligence. This will happen when we
connect our neocortex to the cloud.
The cloud represents pure information technology, which is doubling in power every year. By
making a direct wireless connection from our brains to the cloud, we can expand that number of
300 million modules by a thousandfold or millionfold. Such a connection would give you access to
10,000 computers to perform a complex operation.
The primary application of the nanobots that Kurzweil predicts will come in the 2030s is to directly
connect our neocortex to synthetic modules in the cloud that use the same algorithm. We see this
happening now at Google, where they are implementing a synthetic neocortex, and IBMs Watson
cognitive computer already includes similar algorithms.
The future is going to be dangerous, but the element of safety comes from our ability to integrate
with artificial intelligence as we are already. We already have two billion AIs in the world and were
constantly learning how to integrate these systems into our daily lives.

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 Predicting the Future: An Interview with Ray Kurzweil

Robotics
Advancements in robotics will bring the singularity nearer, and they are already in development
ranging from autonomous cars to nanobots (nano-robots) in our bodies.
Autonomous cars are already on our streets today. In fact, Google cars
have gone now over a million miles, and the most serious incident
occurred when a Google car was pulled over for going too slow. Based on
the statistics, had humans driven these same million miles, we would have
seen many accidents and deaths unfold.
Kurzweil predicts that microscopic robots, each the size of a blood cell, will come in the 2030s, with
three predicted applications:
1 Augment Our Immune System: Nanobots can go after every pathogen: viruses,
bacteria, prions, cancer cells, and cancer stem cells. Theyll be able to fix virtually
every metabolic disease. These nanobots will monitor the bloodstream for optimal
levels and add supplements, remove blockages or toxins, and augment or replace
an organ as needed.
2 Provide Full Emergent Virtual and Augmented Reality from Inside the Nervous System: We
have a virtual and augmented reality revolution on our hands. Currently, these devices are
all outside our eyes and ears, and they integrate with and transform our sensory experience.
What happens when these VR machines are inside us?
3 Connect to the Cloud: This isnt just about having a direct connection to Google-like services,
but it will augment the very essence of our thinking by giving us more modules of neocortex,
which is how we think.
Robotics and other technology will also prolong life expectancy and help us to take care of our
aged parents. Those who live long enough, according to Kurzweil, may be able to virtually live
forever. Kurzweil predicts that so long as people take care of themselves in the short term, the
decades ahead will bring new breakthroughs and emerging technologiesmainly in biotech and
nanotechthat will virtually end disease and aging.
Promise vs. Peril
The dangers of AI are real, but its also considered one of the greatest
inventions humanity will create. Kurzweil outlines the three phases that people
go through when they experiment with technologies like AI:
1 Excitement: Technology can solve all the age-old problems of humanity.
2 Dire Concern: Artificial intelligence is going to destroy the world.
3 Mature View: Humans have a moral imperative to continue developing AI. After all, theres still
a lot of suffering in the world, and AI is helping us cure disease, clean up the environment, and
overcome poverty.
We need to be able to control the peril while we reap the promise, and we can all find comfort in
the Asilomar guidelines. Put into place 30 years ago, these guidelines keep biotech safe, which it
has so far succeeded in doing.

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 Predicting the Future: An Interview with Ray Kurzweil

Knowing how Ray Kurzweil predicts the future, its time for you to make a choice. You can bet that
Rays predictions are wrong even though hes been 86% accurate in his lifetimeor you can
choose to acknowledge they are right. If they are right, what are you going to do differently right
now? How will you predict your future?

FUTURE PREDICTIONS
These are Kurzweils predictions for the next 30+ years. If you are an entrepreneur,
business owner, innovator, or C-suite executive, you need to be thinking about these.
Specifically, how are you going to capitalize on them when they happen? How will they
affect your business?
2000 Newborns Life Expectancy: In the U.S., 2000 is the birth year in which a newborns life
expectancy exceeds 100 years.
2027 Privacy: Half of Americans will give artificial intelligence permission to listen to all of
their conversations and read their emails. (Kurzweil notes: To not take advantage of this
opportunity and service would be like not using search engines today.)
2029 Turing Test: The Turing test involves an instant message conversation between a human
judge and a computer. If the judge cant tell whether hes communicating with a computer
or a human, the computer has passed the Turing test.
Artificial Intelligence: A true artificial intelligence will emerge. It will become the
preferred teacher or professor over a human. Every child on the planet will have access to
the best teacher on the planet.
2030 Brain Plugged into Cloud: In the early 2030s, we will connect our neocortex to the cloud,
upgrading our memory and processing capability.
Nanobots: We will be able to manufacture nanobots to monitor our health.
2033 Diseases: Viral and bacterial diseases will be fully defeated.
Cancer: Cancer will be defeated. Medical nanobots will be able to identify pathogens
cancer cells, cancer stem cells, bacteria, virusesand destroy them.
Longevity Escape Velocity: Your remaining life expectancy increases, not decreases,
because its been increased by more than a year.
High-Speed Bidirectional Brain Computer Interface: These interfaces will use nanobots
to monitor the traffic of individual neocortical modules.
2045 Singularity: We will reach the singularity, where human intelligence will multiply a billionfold.
2048 Deceased Humans Back to Life: This applies to those who have been cryogenically
preserved; if theres damage, the medical team will use whatevers been preserved to
recreate them.

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 Predicting the Future: An Interview with Ray Kurzweil

ABOUT RAY KURZWEIL

Ray Kurzweils Track Record
147 predictions since the 1990s
115 of them have been correct
Another 12 have turned out to be
essentially correct (off by a year
or two)
Stunning 86% accuracy rate

Ray Kurzweil is known for making incredible long-term predictions. He has received 20 honorary
doctorates, has been awarded honors from three U.S. presidents, and has authored 7 books.
He is the principal inventor of many technologies ranging from the first CCD flatbed scanner to
the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind. He is also the chancellor and co-founder
of Singularity University, and the man appointed by Larry Page to direct artificial intelligence
development at Google.

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