Ray Kurzweil and the Law of Accelerating Returns
Ray Kurzweil is one of the world’s leading inventors, thinkers, and futurists, well known in the scientific arena for his numerous accomplishments and revolutionary concepts. He was a pioneer in the fields of text-to-speech synthesis, reading devices for the blind, and electronic keyboards. Yet with all of these admirable achievements, the area where Kurzweil has influenced me the most is in his work with the Law of Accelerating Returns. This law has shown that technological progress is exponentially growing, doubling every 12 to 18 months, and that we will soon be able to extend our lives, enhance our bodies and minds, and rebuild our environment from the atom up. This exponential rate occurs because one technological advancement gives us the ability to make an even higher technological advancement. The speed at which this rate is increasing is what brings me the confidence and excitement to further my academics and career in biology.
Most of the major universities have world class facilities and cutting edge experiments that will shape the future of medicine, so when I study gene therapy, synthetic biology, regenerative stem cell therapy, RNA interference, computer-brain interfacing, cybernetics, and artificial general intelligence, I know that each one of these fields will grow rapidly. These fields will include more and more tools, procedures, engineers, and facilities that will manifest results quickly as data is gathered and shared between university laboratories, governments, and private companies throughout the world. This offer of such an open, expansive future has never been given to humanity before, and I hope to seize this opportunity and reap the benefits for mankind.
Having laid out a timeline for the next thirty-five years of technological growth, Kurzweil shows that within the next decade (2010-2020), biotechnology will mature and begin to produce results that will not only extend our longevity by many decades but also eventually find solutions for the seven cellular problems that result in frailty, disease, and death (barring accidents), which will allow us to live for hundreds of years with our bodies in a youthful and rejuvenated state. In the last few years, I have been following the research of laboratories around the world that are already investigating remedies to the cellular causes of aging. What originally sounded to me like science fiction has suddenly become very attainable, and by the time I finish college and graduate/medical school, the first commercial products from this anti-aging research will have begun to emerge.
In the following decade (2020-2030), nanotechnology will develop into a fully fledged industry. For me, as I plan to be both an MD and a research biologist, I will be able to utilize molecule-sized instruments and machines inside of our bodies to analyze, clean, repair, and replace our cells on a massive scale by the time I am in my thirties. With the advancement of both biotechnology and nanotechnology, human enhancement will include expanding our senses, gaining new physical abilities, receiving genetic improvements, and incorporating nano-materials into our bodies for increased strength, flexibility, and longevity.
The fourth decade of the twenty-first century (2030-2040) is when we will acquire Artificial General Intelligence (AGI, self-aware robots). Once advanced robots with AGI are given the ability to alter their own hardware and software they will accelerate their own intelligence many millions of times in a very short period of time. Once again, in my position as a forty year old MD/research biologist, I will already be deeply immersed in the science and engineering of cybernetics and computer-brain interfacing which will allow us to link up with AGI beings and thus utilize these machines to advance humanity beyond our current expectations. To allow for this computer-brain interfacing, ongoing studies such as Intel’s three-dimensional transistors and quantum computing, multitasking’s effect on dendrite growth, genetic data mining to find causes of improved brain abilities, programming shape-shifting micro robots called catoms, and nano and neuron based wires for interfacing these future computers and appliances are in effect. These technologies show how artificially intelligent beings can utilize computer brain interfaces to link up to humans with organic brain enhancements to multiply our intelligence one hundred fold and eventually, a thousand or even million fold.
It was Ray Kurzweil who introduced me to all of these ideas. It was also he who inspired me to create this blog, and attend a conference in Chicago sponsored by the World Transhumanist Association, where I got to meet the man himself. Because of my interest and passion for the Law of Accelerating Returns and all of the technologies it encompasses, I have decided to devote my future to the pursuit of becoming more than human. While governments, companies, scientists, engineers, and investors throughout the world use the Law of Accelerating Returns for project timelines, hedging their investments, and even as a rule of thumb when discussing expectations, to me the Law of Accelerating Returns is the fuel that sets my imagination ablaze. The universe is our oyster.
