Lifeboat Foundation

“A common challenge to the ideas presented in this book is that these exponential trends must reach a limit, as exponential trends commonly do.” –Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near

Much of the future we envision today depends on the exponential progress of information technology, most popularly illustrated by Moore’s Law. Thanks to shrinking processors, computers have gone from plodding, room-sized monoliths to the quick devices in our pockets or on our wrists. Looking back, this accelerating progress is hard to miss—it’s been amazingly consistent for over five decades.

But how long will it continue?

Continue reading “Will the End of Moore’s Law Halt Computing’s Exponential Rise?” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=L2O58QfObus

At this rate, we may see Ray Kurzweil’s vision of connected humans to the cloud and full singularity before 30 years.

Duke University scientists have given a pair of monkeys the ability to drive a wheelchair with their thoughts alone. The work is described in a paper recently published in the journal Scientific Reports and adds to a growing body of work in brain-machine interfaces aiming to return some freedom to the severely disabled.

Continue reading “Watch Monkeys Drive Wheelchairs With Just Their Thoughts” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=b28Pquo54ek

Dear readers,

My son Ethan Kurzweil — who is a partner at Bessemer Ventures Partners — tracks the future of web innovation, social and legal concerns about privacy, and start-ups who have an edge with their business or consumer applications, like team sourcing or software-as-a-service.

Continue reading “Ask Ray | Ethan Kurzweil debates the role of tech firms in personal privacy” »

9 Kurzweilian predictions from before the Web.

I am glad to see this article publish because it expresses well how technology and biological properties can be intertwined and advance collectively together. It will take this type of an approach to provide the foundation that is needed to enable the future visions that Kurzweil and others have shared around Singularity.

2 decades ago, Lucent experimented with the cells from fish to see how they could enable digital transmission through their experiments. They had some small successes; however, it never fully matured. Today, however, with Quantum we will finally see the advancements in technology, medicine, and science that many have only dreamed about or read from books or saw in movies.

Biological systems can explore every possible solution rapidly.

Continue reading “NP-complete problem solved with biological motors” »

This story reminds me of the building of ancient pyramids in Egypt as well as the building of ancient temples and cities in Mexico and India.

China has relocated 9K people to build their new giant telescope — in 2000 years from now the robots and Ray Kurzweil (who plans never to die) will be looking at the ancient telescope. And, Ray (the grand earth historian) can tell them all about the process and the reason why it was built.

The Chinese government plans to relocate some 9,000 people to make space for the world’s largest radio telescope. Photo: ChinaPhotoPress.

Continue reading “China relocating thousands to build record-size telescope” »

A video about how fast technological progress is going, how much technology has improved the world and the potential for technology to solve our most pressing challenges. Inspired in part by the book Abundance by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, and by the video “Shift Happens 3.0” (also known as “Did You Know”) by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

Among the things mentioned are developments and possibilities within information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. The video also touches upon how several of these developments are exponential, but it does not get into the realm of technological singularity and the thoughts of people such as Ray Kurzweil, which is the topic of some of my other videos.

Continue reading “Did You Know? The Future Is Better Than You Think!” »

“I believe our civilization is going to be vastly more intelligent in the decades ahead,” Kurzweil told Time. “You can argue how we got here, but we are the species that goes beyond our limitations. We didn’t stay on the ground. We didn’t stay on the planet. Our species always transcends.”

The famous inventor and tech pundit shares a few words on why he thinks humans will soon live forever.

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is holding a conference on the future of artificial intelligence that includes some of the field’s biggest names.

Among the keynote speakers at Saturday’s conference at the MIT Media Lab are author and futurist Ray Kurzweil and IBM Watson Vice President and CTO Rob High.

Panels will focus on the influence of AI in the workplace of the future and how to ensure a higher probability of positive outcomes in the field.

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