There are downsides to every technology. Fire kept us warm, but also burned down our villages. Ray Kurzweil More Quotes by Ray Kurzweil More Quotes From Ray Kurzweil What we spend our time on is probably the most important decision we make. Ray Kurzweil decisions-we-make our-time important Play is just another version of work Ray Kurzweil versions play Information defines your personality, your memories, your skills. Ray Kurzweil skills personality memories In 1999, I said that in about a decade we would see technologies such as self-driving cars and mobile phones that could answer your questions, and people criticized these predictions as unrealistic. Ray Kurzweil phones technology self Sometimes people talk about conflict between humans and machines, and you can see that in a lot of science fiction. But the machines were creating are not some invasion from Mars. We create these tools to expand our own reach. Ray Kurzweil creating tools people We'll be able to have very intelligent, little robots with computers going inside our bloodstream, keeping us healthy from inside, destroying cancer at the level of one cell. Ray Kurzweil cancer cells intelligent Evolution is a process of creating patterns of increasing order....I believe that it's the evolution of patterns that constitutes the ultimate story of our world. Evolution works through indirection: each stage or epoch uses the information-processing methods of the previous epoch to create the next. Ray Kurzweil our-world order believe Machines will follow a path that mirrors the evolution of humans. Ultimately, however, self-aware, self-improving machines will evolve beyond humans' ability to control or even understand them. Ray Kurzweil machines mirrors self By 2009, computers will disappear. Displays will be written directly onto our retinas by devices in our eyeglasses and contact lenses. Ray Kurzweil eyeglasses lenses computer We're democratizing the tools of creativity. Ray Kurzweil creativity tools As you go out to the 2040s, now the bulk of our thinking is out in the cloud. The biological portion of our brain didn't go away but the nonbiological portion will be much more powerful. And it will be uploaded automatically the way we back up everything now that's digital. Ray Kurzweil powerful clouds thinking Nature, and the natural human condition, generates tremendous suffering. We have the means to overcome that, and we should deploy it. Ray Kurzweil suffering overcoming mean The story of evolution unfolds with increasing levels of abstraction. Ray Kurzweil levels evolution stories We appear to be programmed with the idea that there are 'things' outside of our self, and some are conscious, and some are not. Ray Kurzweil conscious self ideas I'm an inventor. I became interested in long-term trends because an invention has to make sense in the world in which it is finished, not the world in which it is started. Ray Kurzweil trends long world The Singularity denotes an event that will take place in the material world, the inevitable next step in the evolutionary process that started with biological evolution and has extended through human-directed technological evolution. however, it is precisely in the world of matter and energy that we encounter transcendence, a principal connotation of what people refer to as spirituality. Ray Kurzweil next-steps energy people The ethical debates are like stones in a stream. The water runs around them. You haven't seen any biological technologies held up for one week by any of these debates. Ray Kurzweil technology running water If we could convert 0.03 percent of the sunlight that falls on the earth into energy, we could meet all of our projected needs for 2030. Ray Kurzweil motivation inspiration fall Our intuition about the future is linear. But the reality of information technology is exponential, and that makes a profound difference. If I take 30 steps linearly, I get to 30. If I take 30 steps exponentially, I get to a billion. Ray Kurzweil differences technology reality Biology is a software process. Our bodies are made up of trillions of cells, each governed by this process. You and I are walking around with outdated software running in our bodies, which evolved in a very different era. Ray Kurzweil cells different running
