The visionary and futurist Ray Kurzweil, who was hired by Google several years ago, often bombards us with provocative but often accurate predictions, such as that a computer will beat a human at chess (it already happened) and that we will be surrounded by autonomous vehicles vehicles (already happening). It is also known for the theory of singularity, a concept that futurists like Kurzweil use to explain the development of the world from the point of view of technological development.
Ray Kurzweil he says we've always known that human being it is not perfect and should be fixed. One is done by the cosmetic industry and plastic surgery, and the other aspect is purely technological and aimed at by the mentioned inventor, writer and futurist- singularity. Sam uses the notion of a singularity as the moment when the pace of accelerating the speed of technology development will lead to it being artificial intelligence has surpassed human.
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At the current rate, this should happen before the year is over 2030. The singularity theory says that the pace of change is always faster and that technology is developing exponentially. Kurzweil explains that this pattern repeats itself because we have it at our disposal increasingly sophisticated tools and more and more knowledge. You couldn't make a processor with a primitive stone axe, maybe just a better axe. With this, we could continue to make more and more perfect tools. Well, today we operate with processors and not an ax with which we can in much less time and with much less effort let's build an even better processor.
![The exponential growth of computing.](https://e7852c3a.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/computing-exponential-growth-660x562.jpg)
If we look the history of space and humanity, compared to technology, it took place at a snail's pace or linear. After the big bang, matter first mixed for billions of years and one of the cocktails gave DNA from which, after the passage of millions of years, our ancestors evolved. Another millions of years were needed for the development of the mind, which in its final phase led to the creation of technology. But here we are no longer talking about thousands of years, nor about hundreds of years, but decades. Just look at how little it took television, telephones and, for example, Facebook to become widely used. We're talking about years. With television and classic telephones, we are still talking about decades, but with smart devices and Facebook, the fingers of one hand are enough. But this pace is not yet final. Future technologies will conquered the world even faster. Why? Because growth, as said, is not linear, because thirty steps does not "only" take it thirty steps away. In exponential growth, there are steps one, two, four, eight,… and at thirty you are at a billion. The most famous example of this is Moore's Law, which states that the number of transistors per square inch doubles every year and a half, while the computing power of processors doubles every 24 months.
![Transistors and Moore's Law.](https://e7852c3a.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/moores-law-660x529.jpg)
Smartphones, which are practical, have proven how quickly everything is happening changed our behavior overnight, our culture. This will ultimately lead to the age of artificial intelligence, where human intelligence will no longer be at the top of the "food chain". And if this theory and pace is sustained, we will not experience it in this century 100 years of progress, but 20 thousand!