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Ray Kurzweil is near.
That is, he’s coming to the Coolidge Corner Theater on 3/21 along with a new film about him entitled “Transcendent Man.” Kurzweil is an inventor, having worked in pioneering text to speech software, and alternatively speech to text, or speech recognition software. He originally started the company that is selling that Dragon Naturally Speaking software all over the place now. He also started Kurzweil Music Systems(after befriending Stevie Wonder) which created the first synthesizer to accurately duplicate the sound of a grand piano. According to Kurzweil, from a young age he has operated from the notion that there is a technological solution for any problem you might encounter. And this surely appears to be how he has lived his life. Despite all of those successes Kurzweil is no doubt known best as an author(of The Age of Intelligent Machines, and The Singularity Is Near, etc.) and futurist who has predicted the timeline of and has spread the notion of the coming technological singularity(Kurzweil predicts that in 2029 artificial intelligence will equal and begin to surpass human intelligence). He has also made many other predictions for the future, as well as for the recent past and present based upon the “law of accelerating returns”(the perceived increase in the rate of technological progress throughout history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future). Kurzweil also believes that he can perhaps live forever. Many believe in Kurzweil’s predictions, others are more skeptical.
Either way the man raises fascinating philosophical and technological questions about our future. A very interesting man to look into.
