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Futurist Ray Kurzweil’s goal is to not die at all.
A far-fetched idea, and yet those who have followed Kurzweil’s work over the decades know that many of his wild ideas and predictions come true.
Kurzweil was one of the first to forecast how AI would turbocharge human potential. His thought-provoking predictions about digital technology come from over six decades of experience inventing groundbreaking tools that we use today — tools like text to speech synthesis in 1976 and the first music synthesizer in 1983.
Now, 77, the computer scientist is focused on another prediction: that technology will soon make it possible to extend the human lifespan indefinitely.
Extending life through “longevity escape velocity”
“Right now you go through a year and you use up a year of your longevity,” Kurzweil explained in his 2024 TED Talk. “However, scientific progress is also progressing. … It’s giving us cures for diseases, new forms of treatment. … So you lose a year, you get back four months.”
As scientific progress accelerates, Kurzweil thinks the rate of developing treatments will outpace our aging. He calls this concept “longevity escape velocity.”
“For example, I’ve had these two problems, diabetes and heart disease, which I’ve actually overcome, and I really have no concern with them today,” Kurzweil told NPR’s Manoush Zomorodi. “So today I have an artificial pancreas that’s just like a real pancreas. It’s actually external, but it detects my glucose, determines the amount of insulin that I should have, and it works just like a real pancreas.”
With these types of medical advances, every year that someone gets older their health could deteriorate less and less.
“I don’t guarantee immortality. I’m talking about longevity escape velocity, where we can keep going without getting older. We won’t be aging in the same way that we are today,” said Kurzweil.
Is it only a matter of time before your mind merges with AI?
Along with his goal of escaping death, Kurzweil has envisioned a future where AI dramatically alters the way we think and live.
In 1999, in his book The Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil predicted that by 2029, artificial general intelligence would match and even exceed human intelligence. And while that may not seem so far-fetched anymore, Kurzweil says there’s one way his prediction is unique:
He claims our minds will merge with AI.
“We’re going to be able to think of things and we’re not going to be sure whether it came from our biological intelligence or our computational intelligence. It’s all going to be the same thing.”
Kurzweil calls this “the Singularity” and predicts a future where nanobots directly connect our brains to the cloud, expanding our intelligence.
“We will be funnier, sexier, smarter, more creative, free from biological limitations. We’ll be able to choose our appearance. We’ll be able to do things we can’t do today, like visualize objects in 11 dimensions … speak all languages,” Kurzweil said in his 2024 TED Talk. “We’ll be able to expand consciousness in ways we can barely imagine.”
As far as Kurzweil is concerned, our minds are already starting to merge with machines and will only continue to do so.
TED Radio Hour‘s special series: Prophets of Technology
Curious to learn more about Kurzweil’s predictions about AI and technology? On TED Radio Hour‘s three-part series, Prophets of Technology, host Manoush Zomorodi speaks with Ray Kurzweil and other scientists, entrepreneurs and experts predicting and shaping our tech future. They share what they’ve gotten right — and wrong — and where they think we’re headed next.
This episode is part one of TED Radio Hour’s three-part series: Prophets of Technology, conversations with the minds shaping our digital world. Part two will be available on Friday, July 18 and part three will be available on Friday, July 25.
This digital story was written by Harsha Nahata and edited by Katie Monteleone and Rachel Faulkner White.
This episode of TED Radio Hour was produced by James Delahoussaye and Matthew Cloutier. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour and Manoush Zomorodi.
Our production staff at NPR also includes Fiona Geiran.
Our audio engineers were Maggie Luthar, Jimmy Keeley, Stacey Abbott and Josephine Nyounai.
Talk to us on Instagram @ManoushZ, and on Facebook or email us at TEDRadioHour@npr.org.
