Teachers of science and others who follow rapid development of technologies will find the recent comments of Ray Kurzweil insightful. He gave speeches and served on panels. His comments provide informed glimpses into future developments likely to affect our lives.
Meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Shimon Peres at the recent Israeli Presidential Conference: Facing Tomorrow 2009, Kurzweil proposed several innovations for dealing with the coming energy shortages and bolstering Israel’s growing economy.
He also proposed an “Entrepreneurial Peace Fund” — a collaborative technology incubator between Israel and Palestine.
Speaking at the opening plenary session, Kurzweil reviewed ways of using nanotechnology and other exponentially growing “information technologies” to transform the energy and environmental crisis into opportunities for Israel and for the world.
The proposal was widely met with enthusiasm and support in both public and private sessions.
In two additional panel discussions, Kurzweil described his ideas about the future of artificial intelligence and reverse engineering the brain. He estimates the reverse engineering will occur by 2029. Others estimated by 2018.
Find Kurzweil’s speeches at the conference on the conference website. See thumbnail 5, “Morning Plenary Session,” and thumbnail 9, “A Conversation.”