In the latest edition of TIME, the venerable publication features “10 Questions for Ray Kurzweil,” in which they ask him about how technology will change the way we live, including the role of artificial intelligence, food production, longevity, and even whether we’ll discover extraterrestrial intelligence. A sample:
You predict we’ll reach a point with artificial intelligence that you call the singularity. How will that affect us?
By the time we get to the 2040s, we’ll be able to multiply human intelligence a billionfold. That will be a profound change that’s singular in nature. Computers are going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Ultimately, they will go inside our bodies and brains and make us healthier, make us smarter. We’ll be online all the time. Search engines won’t wait to be asked.
Probably nothing new here for those well-versed in Kurzweil’s ideas, but it’s still neat to see transhumanist ideas being published in a magazine with as wide a circulation as TIME.