Google's Ray Kurzweil Wants To Live Forever, and He Thinks It Includes Nanobots (playboy.com)

Reader Esther Schindler writes: Whatever else he is (author, computer scientist, inventor, futurist, Google employee), Ray Kurzweil is undeniably fascinating, with intriguing predictions about the future -- some of which might be accurate. In an interview, he discusses life extension and technology, as well as how he thinks they'll be connected. "When people talk about the future of technology, especially artificial intelligence, they very often have the common dystopian Hollywood-movie model of us versus the machines. My view is that we will use these tools as we've used all other tools -- to broaden our reach. And in this case, we'll be extending the most important attribute we have, which is our intelligence." Part of what I like is that he sees ways to use technology for good and not for evil. "By the 2030s we will have nanobots that can go into a brain non-invasively through the capillaries, connect to our neocortex and basically connect it to a synthetic neocortex that works the same way in the cloud. So we'll have an additional neocortex, just like we developed an additional neocortex 2 million years ago, and we'll use it just as we used the frontal cortex: to add additional levels of abstraction. We'll create more profound forms of communication than we're familiar with today, more profound music and funnier jokes. We'll be funnier. We'll be sexier. We'll be more adept at expressing loving sentiments."Kurzweil also thinks his diet can help him live forever. Kurzweil claims that he spends "a few thousand dollars per day" (or roughly a million dollar a year) on diet pills and eating right. According to a Financial Times report from last year, Kurzweil's breakfast includes:Berries (85 calories for a cup), Dark chocolate infused with espresso (170 calories for an ounce), Smoked salmon and mackerel (100 calories for a 3-ounce serving), Vanilla soy milk (100 calories for a cup) Stevia (zero calories), Porridge (150 to 350 calories for half a cup, depending on ingredients and cooking method), and Green tea (zero calories). Kurzweil takes 100 pills a day (down from 250 a few years ago, technology has advanced, you see) for "heart health" to "eye health, sexual health, and brain health."

Comments

Whatever else he is

[PvtVoid]

Whatever else he is, Kurzweil is undeniably a self-promoting hack who is almost always completely wrong about everything.

Sorry. He's going to die just like the rest of us.

Re:Whatever else he is

[kuzb]

I don't think I'd go so far as calling a man with his achievements a hack, but I would say he's a bit of a self-promoting blowhard that sometimes tries to sell science fiction as science fact.

Re:Whatever else he is

[JoshuaZ]

I don't know if he is completely wrong about everything. Some of his predictions are spot on and others seem less so. For example, back in the late 2000s he predicted a one-world government by 2020. Pretty sure that's not going to happen. http://lesswrong.com/lw/diz/kurzweils_predictions_good_accuracy_poor/ has a good analysis which suggests that Kurzweil is more accurate than many other people making predictions but at the same time he's highly overconfident in his predictions. See also http://lesswrong.com/lw/gbi/assessing_kurzweil_the_results/.

Re:madness

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an incorrect quote from the article, the article actually says:

> I ask how much this regime costs. “It’s a few thousand dollars a year. But it’s not one size fits all. A healthy 30-year-old might just need basic supplements”

So it's a few thousand a year, not a few thousand a day. Geez editors, wtf?