Google has hired Ray Kurzweil as Director of Engineering. Ray Kurzweil is most well known for his books, ‘How to Create a Mind’, and ‘The Singularity is Near’. It is clear that Google is preparing itself for epic technological achievements.
Ray Kurzweil is arguably the most well known and respected forward thinker, he is an expert in the field of artificial brain building, and is the lead theorist about the upcoming technological singularity (the point in the predicted near future when technology outsmarts humans to the extent that we cannot predict the events that will thereafter occur). For more information about him, view his background page.
Ties between Google and Kurzweil have been long standing; Google has part funded the Singularity University.
The opinions of futurists are often laughed off as unrealistic. For example, people look back on predictions that by the year 2000 we would have flying cars. These predictions were not though made based on current trends and realistic needs.
Ray Kurzweil has been so far successfully predicting technological growth based on the proved occurrence of exponential technological growth. In 1999, Kurzweil predicted that in about another decade we would be able to ask questions to a mobile device, and that self driving cars would have been developed. The suggestions were shrugged off as unrealistic. Yet we can now speak to mobile assistants in our hands with access to all public information, and Google has produced self driving cars.
With Kurzweil now on Google’s team with the title of engineer, perhaps the critics may take predictions of the upcoming singularity more seriously.
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