He is one of the world’s most renowned futurists, and onstage at South By Southwest, Ray Kurzweil stirred debate with a speech that outlined the incredible role artificial intelligence will play in the future, as it reshapes humanity.
The session opened with a monologue from Kurzweil, a rapid-fire summary of his widely-known beliefs in exponential growth, as far as technology and computing power is concerned. Pointing to his smart phone, Kurzweil routinely tells crowds that what he uses and carries around everyday is now a billion times more powerful than the computer he used as a student. And also thousands of times smaller, and cheaper.
It is precisely this dramatic growth in computing power that guides many of Kurzweil’s beliefs. As computer chips get smaller, and more powerful, he sees the trend intensifying to the point that humans will start aggressively employing, and implanting, nanotechnology, as devices the size of a blood cell emerge as one billion times more powerful than our iPhone. Just as these devices aid doctors in diagnosing and treating patients, Kurzweil also envisions a day when doctors will be able to more radically manipulate our genes and DNA. As he sees it, with the mapping of the human genome – which, he says, is yet more proof of his exponential growth paradigm, as it took seven years to map out first one percent of the genome but only a few years to map the remaining 99 percent – scientists will start approaching biology from the paradigm of information technology. He says that some of the outdated biological laws that govern human bodies, like conserving calories in the event than next year’s hunting season falters, could be switched off, alleviating issues of obesity. Or manipulate other aspects of the genome and you can start tackling issues of hereditary disease and even aging.
In one animated portion of Kurzweil’s slideshow, he used a graph that plotted data from the late 1800s through the 21st century, comparing average human lifespan to average incomes, demonstrating how incremental gains in both during the first half of the twentieth century accelerated furiously in the second half. The rising tide of technology, Kurzweil would surely claim, lifts all boats.
Of course, what has always fascinated Kurzweil’s listeners – and what surely intrigued TIME editors, when Kurzweil’s theories were elevated to the cover of the magazine – is the prospect that computing power will become so great in the cloud, that biological technology will become so sophisticated, and that medical devices will become so small that humans will effectively be able to stave off death entirely. By 2045 – or perhaps even earlier – artificial intelligence will become so sophisticated and pervasive that humans will be able to make use of these tools to achieve immortality. This is the future, as Ray Kurzweil sees it.
Grossman pointedly questioned Kurzweil about the potential loss of our “human nature” in a world dominated by artificial intelligence. But Kurzweil linked the future of our “human-machine civilization” to the full sweep of human history: “Ever since we first picked up a stick to reach a tree branch,” he said, we have been creating tools to aid our existence. So he sees the futuristic nanotechnology and artificial intelligence purely as tools that will serve as extensions of our humanity. Also: Just as today the data one access on their iPhone exists both within the phone and out in the cloud, he envisions a future where not only are nanobots being added to our bodies but where our brains being augmented by processing power in the cloud. Where search engines do not need to be prompted to offer helpful information, but instead grow intuitive, providing us information as we need it. As Kurzweil sees it, this is about expanding our intellect, and our capabilities, not deferring all this to machines.
Grossman pondered whether some technological gains become a zero-sum game, as we bury our heads increasingly in our smartphones, losing connection to the people and places around us. Kurzweil, however, didn’t share those concerns, pointing out that technology has assisted us in connecting with more people more quickly and in a far richer context than at any other time in human history. The problem, it would appear, is not with the technology but with our use of it. If you want to be more connected with those around you, he surmised, then simply put the phone away.
In one of his most provocative pronouncements, Kurzweil did not bat an eye in claiming that not only will artificial intelligence evolve to the point that we can carry on human interactions with robots, but that we will easily accept AI as an equal and contemporary to our own consciousness. “We are a human-machine civilization. Everybody has been enhanced with computer technology…they’re really part of who we are,” he said. “If we can convince people that computers have complexity of thought and nuance … we’ll come to accept them as human.”
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