Society alum, Ray Kurzweil discusses the future of AI
Each year, Society for Science hosts signature events that honor our alumni and provide opportunities to learn from their experiences and insights. At one event, we heard from inventor, author and futurist, Ray Kurzweil (STS 1965, ISEF 1965), who shared his insights on AI, technology and his latest book, “The Singularity is Nearer.”
Michael Gordon Voss, Publisher of Science News opened the conversation by asking Ray when he first knew he wanted to be an inventor. Ray traces those pivotal moments back to the influence of his great-grandmother.
“In 1868, my great-grandmother started a school that allowed women to go from kindergarten through the 14th grade,” Ray said. “This was very significant because if you were lucky enough to get an education at all in 19th-century Europe, it would only be through the ninth grade.” Ray said his great-grandmother’s daughter—his grandmother—was one of the first women to earn a doctorate in chemistry. She took over the school and ran it for 70 years between 1868 and 1938—the beginning of World War II.
“When I was about six years old, she showed me a typewriter,” Ray said. “I was very interested in manuals and here was a device you could put a blank piece of paper in and make it look like it came from a book.” His grandmother’s introduction to the typewriter snowballed, and Ray’s interest in inventing took off. He said he collected parts from broken bicycles and radios and was studying how they were put together.
“If I could just figure out how to put them together, I could solve any problem. I could make people live longer and help them overcome disease.”
Ray invented the first charged-coupled device (CCD) flatbed scanner, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, and the first music synthesizer capable of recreating a grand piano and other orchestral instruments.
Later, Michael asked Ray how futurism relates to being an inventor.
Ray noted that this was about imagining how the world could change and what might be possible in the future. For an inventor, it means looking ahead, not just at what people need now, but at what they might need five or ten years from now. Presenting the chart below, Ray talked about exponential thinking and how it has impacted mankind.
The chart traced 85 years of computer history, showing how past advancements connect to AI’s future impact on society. Ray described his predictions for AI as conservative, expecting that by 2030, AI will be able to process all of human knowledge. “Computers are language models that can handle everything human beings know,” he said. “You can ask it anything; no human being can do that, and we’re coming up with things we didn’t know before.”
Ray then emphasized that AI is not “artificial” but is real intelligence. It is knowledge we can apply directly to our thinking, just as we quickly get answers from our phones. Ray pointed out the rise in social media influencers, which didn’t even exist two decades ago, as evidence that AI will create new opportunities and possibilities. That people will become smarter.
Addressing questions about AI’s risks, including the so-called “P(doom).” Ray argued that history shows technological progress expands opportunity for humanity rather than diminishes it.
“This concern started 200 years ago,” Ray said. “Twenty years ago, people thought that employment would only be enjoyed by a few people, but employment has gone up and we’re doing things you couldn’t even imagine 20 years ago.”
To watch and learn more about alum Ray Kurzweil, you can find the video here and profile here.
