2020: Gloom-merchant-extinction year
I’ve been working my way through Ray Kurzweil’s 500-page book, The Singularity is Near, for several weeks. Today, I watched a 75-minute presentation by Ray Kurzweil, ending with a Q&A session, given at the Council on Foreign Relations on 11/30/05 (four weeks ago). The presentation is an excellent summary of the book, by the author himself.
My summary of his summary: Our technological capability, both information and nano, is growing exponentially—and the exponent itself is growing. We’ve now reached the knee of the curve, and will be going near-vertical very soon. The year 2020 will be a key milestone in human history. In short, the doomsters are doomed. Fourteen years to go; I can hardly wait.
If your schedule can more easily accommodate listening to a 75-minute audio (or reading its transcript) than reading a 500-page book, I strongly recommend following one of the links below. Listen to Ray Kurzweil tell you about it himself:
TiVo owners should check CSPAN-2’s schedule (program: Book TV), to view this presentation by Kurzweil; he shows several excellent charts from his book, illustrating his point about exponential growth. (Those charts don't come through very well in an audio file. Duh.)
