"Transcendant Man" — both human and machine

DiggThis

Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil's vision of human-machine synthesis stirs worldwide interest, and fear.

By Tom Abate - Global Post
Published: March 26, 2009 13:50 ET

SAN FRANCISCO — Inventor Ray Kurzweil has become the foremost proponent of a future in which humans and machines merge, thus transcending biological evolution.

A technical genius with a flair for showmanship, Kurzweil believes human consciousness will one day be uploaded into electronic systems, allowing people to achieve a form of virtual immortality. His epic-length 2005 book, “The Singularity is Near,” won him a small coterie of fans and critics in global technology circles. Now a forthcoming documentary, “Transcendent Man,” showcases this complex man and his heady notions in an 85-minute biography accessible to a broader audience.

The documentary, which will debut at New York's Tribeca Film Festival in April, was directed by Los Angeles filmmaker Barry Ptolomey. His crew spent two years following the 61-year-old Kurzweil around the world. The result: A sympathetic, but not uncritical, depiction of Kurzweil's theory that scientific advances will result in a human-machine fusion within mere decades. As a technology reporter who has long followed Kurzweil's career, I appear briefly in the documentary to suggest that, like him or not, Kurzweil's track record as an inventor and futurist demand attention.

Kurzweil first achieved fame in 1976 when he hooked an optical scanner to a voice synthesizer, creating a device that could read text aloud to the blind. The first Kurzweil Reading Machine was the size of a washing machine and cost $50,000. It made a splash on television when then-CBS newscaster Walter Cronkite used it to read aloud his famous sign-off line, “And that's the way it was.”

Ever since, Kurzweil — who has been likened to a modern Thomas Edison — has focused on gadgets with some prosthetic purpose. Among his recent inventions is a $1,600 software program that can be loaded onto a camera-equipped Nokia cell phone. The device, called the kReader Mobile, allows users to snap pictures of printed documents and hear an audio playback — it's a handheld version of his original reader.

Kurzweil's gift has been his mastery of pattern recognition: writing programs that imitate the way the human brain makes sense of the world.

Beginning in 1990, he started devoting his skills toward anticipating the future. In a series of books that have been translated into several languages, Kurzweil tells the global technology community that the brain is not the end of evolution. Rather, he says, it's a step toward the synthesis of biological and machine intelligence into something trans-human.

Comments:

No Comments.

Login or Register to post comments

Recent on Technology:

Can Toyota Digg its way out of recall crisis?

Thomas Mucha - Commerce - February 7, 2010 09:07 ET

The reeling Japanese automaker turns from old school PR to new media.

On Location: Shoul, Morocco — On the organic food frontier

Solana Pyne and Erik German - Morocco - February 5, 2010 06:55 ET

Saudi women revel in online lives

Caryle Murphy - Saudi Arabia - February 4, 2010 06:34 ET

Internet gives Saudi women a rare outlet for social interaction.

Mexico considers clamping down on Twitter

Michael E. Miller - Mexico - February 2, 2010 06:58 ET

Mexicans are using Twitter to avoid drunk-driving checkpoints. Drug cartels might be using it too. Does that justify restricting social networking sites?

Mac Rumor Alert: What Apple's "iTablet" could mean for Asia

Jonathan Adams - China and its neighbors - January 27, 2010 09:48 ET

Here's the latest chatter about the supply chain of the coming Apple gadget — if it really exists.

Apple news: Workers' rights the focus again

Kathleen E. McLaughlin - Commerce - January 26, 2010 12:18 ET

Another flare-up hits a Chinese high-tech factory.

China v. Google: Beijing fights back

Kathleen E. McLaughlin - China and its neighbors - January 25, 2010 20:14 ET

The Chinese government takes a swing at Hillary Clinton. How bad can this get?

Facebook, Orkut and the caste system

Hanna Ingber Win - India - January 21, 2010 06:53 ET

Ancient, meet the modern. How are India's complex social interactions playing out across social media?

Europe's airport security dilemma

Teri Schultz - European Union - January 20, 2010 21:42 ET

Body scanners: You'll see them at US airports. But whether European airports will have them is up in the air.

The secret behind "Avatar" and Twilight's "New Moon"

Jason Overdorf - Commerce - January 12, 2010 06:36 ET

Can you hear the Indian accent behind Hollywood's biggest hits?

Liberia struggles to get online

Myles Estey - Africa - January 11, 2010 06:33 ET

Lack of fiber optic connection to rest of world is a major hurdle for war-torn country.

Will a robot be the next great humanitarian?

William Dowell - NGOs - January 7, 2010 12:02 ET

Experts see humanitarian applications for the next generation of robots.

"Witch hunting" on the web. The latest Korean fad?

Jiyeon Lee - South Korea - January 7, 2010 11:37 ET

The most wired country in the world has always been on the forefront of internet trends. Now, they're on the cusp of cyber-violence.

Looking through Galileo's eyes

Nicole Martinelli - Italy - January 3, 2010 15:04 ET

Modern astronomers marvel at what Galileo Galilei discovered with his 17th-century telescope.

Opinion: The Avatar Decade

Susan E. Reed - Worldview - January 2, 2010 10:41 ET

Watch as the world "avatars," as spheres of politics and big business make way for creativity, science and people power.

Rwanda bids to become East Africa's WiFi hotspot

Eamon Kircher-Allen - Africa - December 30, 2009 14:06 ET

If all you know about Rwanda is gorillas and genocide, think again. The tiny country is gearing up to become East Africa’s tech capital.

Holiday shopping: The next big thing in Taiwan?

Jonathan Adams - China and its neighbors - December 23, 2009 06:59 ET

A look behind the booming business of e-books. It's a page turner.

Electric Japan: Can politicians save the electronics industry?

Chana R. Schoenberger - Japan - December 22, 2009 09:33 ET

Their next target: Latin America.

Electric Japan: A yen for digital TV

Chana R. Schoenberger - Japan - December 21, 2009 06:35 ET

Are Japanese companies set to make a killing?

Climate change: Forget Copenhagen. What about Kuzumaki?

Justin McCurry - Japan - December 19, 2009 09:03 ET

Japan launches a bold green energy experiment. It might even work.