- According to respected futurologist Ray Kurzweil, we will only be a few years away from human immortality.
- According to him, this “dream” (or nightmare it depends) will be achieved thanks to nanorobotics
- Beyond that, he sees 2029 as a pivotal year in which the first sentient AIs will arrive.
It is clear that the 2020s will be a decade of major innovations. Artificial intelligence – or at least the first really convincing conversational AIs – are completely changing the job market (and probably other aspects of society in the near future). We know that robotics, for example, is technologically close to the advent of “personal” android robots that help humans on a daily basis.
But what the 2029-2030 horizon has in store for us is probably even more surprising (and a little worrying). According to Ray Kurzweil human immortality is closer to us than you probably think. It is based on the most recent advances in medicine and nanorobotics. And this is not the first time that he has made this prediction: he has set the horizon of 2030 since the mid-2000s as a pivotal date when this kind of technology is likely to emerge.
Immortality is probably within our reach in a few years… but at what cost?
But this former Googler does not seem to change his mind as time goes by – all based on the latest scientific publications that pass before his eyes. The first of his predictions on the subject can be found in his 2005 book entitled The Singularity is Near (The Singularity is Near). He develops the idea that converging technological advances will at some point in our history cause a runaway beyond which progress will only be possible via superintelligent AI with an IQ much higher than that of current human intelligence. .
For him, like many authors, this moment of singularity would only occur in 2045. So ultimately not that far. However, even before that, in barely 7 years, according to him, humanity would be able, thanks to AI, to develop the technologies necessary to cure all diseases, reverse the effects of aging… and even make humans who desire it immortal. For this, he imagines the advent of nanorobotics and its generalization in the medical sector.
These nanorobots could thus permanently repair our DNA allowing us to survive indefinitely. Ray Kurzweil has just reiterated this prediction on the sidelines of a series of Youtube videos from the Adagio channel. Of course, these nanorobots would have many other advantages for human health: they would allow us to enjoy life without constraints, eat as much as we want while remaining lean, never be affected by fatigue, by illnesses… At the same time, artificial intelligences will pass on this date, according to him, hands down Turing tests for the first time (you know, this test allowing to certify that AIs have started to become conscious…).
By the time of the singularity, around 2045, humans will have already begun to merge with machines and AI, multiplying their intelligence by something in the order of a billion, continues the futurologist. So, of course, this incredible prediction may seem far-fetched, and is not certain to come true. However, no one can doubt that AI is advancing at a considerable speed in this decade of 2020, and the tempo seems to be accelerating exponentially.
We note that Ray Kurzweil, 75, is already the author of predictions that have turned out to be true when they seemed in their time far-fetched. In particular, he had seen long before their advent the generalization of personal computers and their ability to allow everyone to “design their own clothes”. He also predicted that people would primarily use smartphones of various sizes and shapes by 2009. Of course, immortality would raise fundamental questions about the very nature of human beings and the organization of society – if this umpteenth vision of the future also turned out to be correct.
