An AI visionary looks forward to the best of all possible worlds

In 1993 Vernor Vinge popularised the notion of the Singularity – the point at which exponentially accelerating trends in multiple technologies move out of control in an endless positive feedback loop. Vinge was a science fiction writer; Ray Kurzweil is not. In 1993 he had already pioneered optical character recognition and synthesisers that could precisely mimic real instruments. His mission crystallised into making Vinge’s conceit a reality. He is principal researcher and ‘AI visionary’ at Google – and principal proselytiser, too, through any number of portentously titled books.

The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999) set out his stall; The Singularity is Near (2005) staked a claim for human-level intelligence in computers by 2029 and a generalised apotheosis in 2045. So, on his timescale, we are roughly half way between 2005 and a third book in the trilogy, presumably The Singularity is Now – although by that time no one will be reading books because adaptations to our neocortices will mean that all the world’s information will be available to everyone, everywhere, immediately, inescapably.