One of the regular contributors to our forums, “Trickfox,” often speaks of the approaching “Singularity” — when mortal humans will ‘merge’ with immortal machines. Now comes this WIRED magazine profile of inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, who has dedicated his own singular life to being there when the moment arrives, however long that might take:
Ray Kurzweil, the famous inventor, is trim, balding, and not very tall. With his perfect posture and narrow black glasses, he would look at home in an old documentary about Cape Canaveral, but his mission is bolder than any mere voyage into space. He is attempting to travel across a frontier in time, to pass through the border between our era and a future so different as to be unrecognizable. He calls this border the singularity. Kurzweil is 60, but he intends to be no more than 40 when the singularity arrives.