Progress at light speed – Ray Kurzweil

Where humanity will be by midcentury is barely conceivable to us now, he says. Humans will merge with their machines to make quantum leaps in intelligence and abilities. They will vastly improve their bodies using nanotechnology and live extremely long lives – or perhaps abandon their bodies altogether, continuing on indefinitely in a nonbiological form.

The future isn’t just evolving, says Ray Kurzweil – it’s exploding. We just can’t quite see the pyrotechnics yet. That’s because change is happening at an exponential rate.

"Exponential growth looks like nothing is happening, and then suddenly you get this explosion at the end," says Mr. Kurzweil, a prominent inventor, mathematician, and entrepreneur. Evolution has taken millions of years to bring humanity to this point, he says. With the help of technology, the pace of change is about to accelerate at an astonishing rate.

Kurzweil lays out these startling conclusions in "The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology." It tops the science bestsellers list at Amazon.com.

By Gregory M. Lamb | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Full Story: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1013/p14s01-stgn.html?s=hns