The Singularity is Coming in 2029 and Will Make Humans ‘Sexier’ – Inverse

The singularity is going to make us even better at being human, says leading futurist Ray Kurzweil. When it comes and we upload our brains into the cloud, we wont need all the brain space we spend on information, he says.

When that happens, Kurzweil says: Were going to get more neocortex, were going to be funnier, were going to be better at music. Were going to be sexier. Were really going to exemplify all the things that we value in humans to a greater degree.

On Monday, Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, spoke at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas with his daughter Amy Kurzweil, a cartoonist and adjunct professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. During the talk, Ray Kurzweil highlighted three big things: that we have to continue to predict change, that the singularity will happen by 2029, and that humans merging with A.I. will only make us better. Like Elon Musks neural lace, Kurzweil sees merging with artificial intelligence as the future. But he isnt suggesting this because of the threat of a robot takeover. Instead, it will make us even more human.

Kurzweil doubled down on the advent of the singularity, which will happen in 12 years.

By 2029 computers will have human-level intelligence, he says. This is earlier than other expert predictions about the rise of computers as smart as people, which have hit closer to 2045.

Predicting the future of information technology and artificial intelligence means challenging the linear nature of human thought, says Kurzweil. Our brains think linearly, and thats the primary difference between my critics and myself.

Since he has witnessed information technology double every year since his undergraduate career, he sees the future of A.I. changing at an exponential rate. Its incredible that people have lived through this exponential change and they fall off the horse, they cant imagine it can change ever again, he says.

What I talk about, ultimately, that leads to computers having human intelligence, our putting them inside our brains, connecting them to the cloud, expanding who we are. Today, thats not just a future scenario, he says. Its here, in part and its going to accelerate.

But hes not particularly worried about it. The future isnt going to look like a science fiction story with a few super intelligent A.I.s that attack us.

Thats not realistic. We dont have one or two A.I.s in the world. Today we have billions, he says. And unlike Musk who imagines the rise of the A.I. as something that threatens human existence, Kurzweil says that doesnt hold with how we interact with A.I.s today.

Whats actually happening is they are powering all of us. Theyre making us smarter. They may not yet be inside our bodies but by the 2030s we will connect our neocortex, the part of our brain where we do our thinking, to the cloud.

This isnt just a pipe dream to Kurzweil, whos had reasonable luck predicting where the future is going to go. There are people with computers in their brains today Parkinsons patients, he points out. Thats how these things start. Following the path of steps from the technology we have now, to what will happen twenty years from now, Kurzweil says, in the 2030s there will be something you can take that will go inside your brain and help your memory. And thats just the beginning.

Uploading our brains into the cloud will allow humanity to waste less time on lower-level types of mental tasks, Kurzweil says. Hes very interested in the idea of uploading the neocortex because its responsible for things like art, music, and humor. By allowing our brains to connect more on that level, by melding with artificial intelligence, we will expand our ability to do these things and be better people. Ultimately it will affect everything, he says. Were going to be able to meet the physical needs of all humans. Were going to expand our minds and exemplify these artistic qualities that we value.

You can watch the entire talk here:

Photos via Hanson Robotics, SXSW

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The Singularity is Coming in 2029 and Will Make Humans 'Sexier' - Inverse