**Two-year check-in from January 20, 2023**
I took these pics of Ray Kurzweil from the front row of the 2011 NRF Shop Org Conference. Proudly, I’ll say that I pitched the NRF on having Ray as the keynote that year, and amazingly, they did it. I’ve been a fan of Ray since his 2005 book “The Singularity Is Near“. He gets teased mercilessly for his dream of life extension and for predicting a dystopian(?) computer singularity. Will the exponential pace of computing outrun our ability to keep up? Are Ray’s chickens coming home to roost? Let’s ask the expert:
Me: I’d like to learn about Ray Kurzweil’s computing predictions. In particular, Ray’s timeline of computer power. When did Ray think that computers would match the human brain?
ChatGPT: Ray Kurzweil is a futurist and inventor who has made a number of predictions about the future of computing. In his 2005 book “The Singularity is Near,” Kurzweil predicts that computers will match the power of the human brain by around 2029. He based this prediction on his “law of accelerating returns,” which states that the rate of technological progress is exponential, and that we will see rapid advancements in fields such as artificial intelligence and nanotechnology in the coming decades.
Well Ray, 2029 is coming into focus as fairly safe bet!
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