Inventing is a lot like surfing: you have to anticipate and catch the wave at just the right moment.
Ray KurzweilEvolution is a process of creating patterns of increasing order....I believe that it's the evolution of patterns that constitutes the ultimate story of our world. Evolution works through indirection: each stage or epoch uses the information-processing methods of the previous epoch to create the next.
Ray KurzweilBiology is a software process. Our bodies are made up of trillions of cells, each governed by this process. You and I are walking around with outdated software running in our bodies, which evolved in a very different era.
Ray KurzweilThe software programs that make our body run ... were evolved in very different times. We'd like to actually change those programs. One little software program, called the fat insulin receptor gene, basically says, 'Hold onto every calorie, because the next hunting season may not work out so well.' That was in the interests of the species tens of thousands of years ago. We'd like to turn that program off.
Ray KurzweilBiological evolution is too slow for the human species. Over the next few decades, it's going to be left in the dust.
Ray KurzweilBy the time we get to the 2040s, we'll be able to multiply human intelligence a billionfold. That will be a profound change that's singular in nature. Computers are going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Ultimately, they will go inside our bodies and brains and make us healthier, make us smarter.
Ray Kurzweil[In] 2029, I think, computers will match and exceed human intelligence in the ways we're now superior, like being funny, where we still have an edge.
Ray KurzweilMachines will follow a path that mirrors the evolution of humans. Ultimately, however, self-aware, self-improving machines will evolve beyond humans' ability to control or even understand them.
Ray KurzweilAll of our schools need to bring 'learn from doing' into the mainstream education, not just afternoon.
Ray KurzweilAs you go out to the 2040s, now the bulk of our thinking is out in the cloud. The biological portion of our brain didn't go away but the nonbiological portion will be much more powerful. And it will be uploaded automatically the way we back up everything now that's digital.
Ray KurzweilIt is doubling now every two years. Doubling every two years means multiplying by 1,000 in 20 years. At that rate we'll meet 100 percent of our energy needs in 20 years.
Ray KurzweilPeople talk philosophically, Oh, I don't want to live past 100.' You know, I'd like to hear them say that when they're 99.
Ray KurzweilThe telephone is virtual reality in that you can meet with someone as if you are together, at least for the auditory sense.
Ray KurzweilEven by common wisdom, there seem to be both people and objects in my dream that are outside myself, but clearly they were created in myself and are part of me; they are mental constructs in my own brain.
Ray KurzweilA Singularitarian is someone who understands the Singularity and has reflected on its meaning for his or her own life.
Ray KurzweilWe'll be able to have very intelligent, little robots with computers going inside our bloodstream, keeping us healthy from inside, destroying cancer at the level of one cell.
Ray KurzweilThe ethical debates are like stones in a stream. The water runs around them. You haven't seen any biological technologies held up for one week by any of these debates.
Ray KurzweilIn 1999, I said that in about a decade we would see technologies such as self-driving cars and mobile phones that could answer your questions, and people criticized these predictions as unrealistic.
Ray KurzweilTo transcend means to "go beyond," but this need not compel us to an ornate dualist view that regards transcendent levels of reality (e.g., the spiritual level) to be not of this world. We can "go beyond" the "ordinary" powers of the material world through the power of patterns. Rather than a materialist, I would prefer to consider myself a "patternist." It's through the emergent powers of the pattern that we transcend.
Ray KurzweilBy the time of the Singularity, there won't be a distinction between humans and technology. This is not because humans will have become what we think of as machines today, but rather machines will have progressed to be like humans and beyond. Technology will be the metaphorical opposable thumb that enables our next step in evolution.
Ray Kurzweil