Ray Kurzweil — Immortality by 2045

A world-class prolific inventor and leading futurist author, "the restless genius" (Wall Street Journal) points to 2045 for the technological singularity when A.I. will surpass human intelligence in his New York Times best seller The Singularity is Near, Amazon's #1 book in science and philosophy.

"If we have radical life extension only, we would get profoundly bored, we'd have profound existential ennui, running out of things to do, and new ideas, but that's not what's going to happen. In addition to radical life extension, we're going to have radical life expansion, we're going to have millions of virtual environments to explore, we're going to literally expand our brains."

"We'll be routinely able to change our bodies very quickly, as well as our environments in virtual reality, but it will feel very real. We'll ultimately be able to do that with real reality too, like self-organizing swarms of nanobots that can link themselves up into a virtual body." says Ray Kurzweil.

[MarceiveX]

When I'm 48, I'll see for myself. Doesn't really matter in my opinion. However, I would love it. The only reason to have immortality is to get more knowledge, explore and see what the future holds.

[inthezone]

2045 seems like a good estimate to me. I can remember 20 years ago when smart phones, tablets and micro storage devices etc was the stuff of science fiction and look at how fast technology has progressed!

[squamish]

2045...Kurzweil will be 96, almost 97. In other words, in a barely plausible timeframe for him to get his own brain uploaded. Irony dictates that he will work hard to make this possibility real and then conk out from exhaustion in 2044.

[uirehuigedkahds]

I think Ray is brilliant and says a lot of things I agree with. However, it's difficult to trust a man with so much bling on his fingers. What the hell, he's got more bling than gucci mane.

[jackstratif]

Immortality or not. Whether or not we see it in our lifetime...I don't know, however I'am sure people in the far future (if you could even still call them "people") will be shocked to read some of the comments below. Just think about death, your body in a dark pit where your essence and consciousness no longer exists, everybody and everything you have ever loved gone and your whole life forgotten. Again I don't know if immortality will come anytime soon but the mindset people have on the topic shocks me and I'am certain people of the far future will have a difficult time believing that once the variables started to fall into place to make indefinite life become a reality, that people didn't even want it. The only way I can get my head around it is that people have just been told for so long that death is inevitable and that it's a noble thing to die, so I guess after hearing it so many times people just kind of accept it as the truth (Same story with religion as well)

[Dquags]

i don't really like the idea that our minds will be inside robots and that the human body won't matter. i also really want this to happen so i can live in the future and i can finally be part of all the space exploration in the future.

[scottcoursey]

His 4 rings, I'm curious if he's a mason

[therustymusket]

IMMORTALITY, TAKE IT! ITS YOURS! - Achilles

[gm]

So, This is the making of the Matrix! ....

[BloodCrazedWarrior]

Living on this world forever would be absolute hell.

[Trevurr]

that would be cool, the virtual reality thing, it would be awesome to plug yourself into a computer and like play minecraft as though you were in the world or play sims and be able to completely customize your body and then live in the game as your sim. i'm glad that i'll still be relatively young by the time 2045 rolls around so i can experience this stuff, if it actually happens, which honestly seems very possible considering how quickly technology has already progressed over the last 10 years

[emmetfeerick]

That tick of his is new; you dont see it in his earlier videos. I wonder if it has anything to do with the 150+ meds he is on.

[gabecore]

i don't understand how every person here can ignore how exciting this sounds! Honestly the only thing that worries me is my fear of death during a transfer of consciousness. If we are able to COPY our minds and put them into multiple bodies, I don't believe that we will be aware within all those bodies, they will be merely copies. I get the feeling our current consciousness will end during the transfer only to create an identical one.

[tylerzhang]

25yrs left...and human still fights against illusions

[Masterfully]

This man is after much the same thing that I am. I want opportunity for the human species, to be smarter, more able to explore the mysteries of life. And of course, to be happy, in whatever pursuit you find of interest.

[caveatemp]

Exactly. It's a perfect model for hell.

[alanstein]

Just a few thought from a scientific layperson:

1) A virtual version of ourselves DOES NOT sound desireable to me. If you can't feel the touch or embrace of another person, then you are diminished to the point where you are not the same being, not the same species, as before.

2) Because a virtual version of ourselves is NOT THE SAME as us, it DOES NOT meet the criteria of "immortality" or even "life extension".

3) Although I sincerely wish Ray Kurzweil the best of luck and good fortune, I think that he may be overly optimistic in his assumption what he will be alive, and in sound mind, in 2045. That is more than 30 years from now, and Mr. Kurzweil appears to be well into his AARP years at this point.

[ppatricide]

When that time comes, if you have your mind uploaded as information the body won't mean much of anything, you could control multiples and go in and out of different ones. As long as you have this "mind-file backup" as Ray calls it, you technically could live forever.

[fibbsabaddy]

Does anyone know if in this techno utopian future we will be able to stop the random adverts that come on whilst you tube is open?

Please let be the first subject for the experiment to make us live for ever. I want to live forever :)