No matter what problem you encounter, whether it's a grand challenge for humanity or a personal problem of your own, there's an idea out there that can overcome it. And you can find that idea.
Our intuition about the future is linear. But the reality of information technology is exponential, and that makes a profound difference. If I take 30 steps linearly, I get to 30. If I take 30 steps exponentially, I get to a billion.
Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization a billion-fold.
Our technology, our machines, is part of our humanity. We created them to extend ourselves, and that is what is unique about human beings.
Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.
What we spend our time on is probably the most important decision we make.
All different forms of human expression, art, science, are going to become expanded, by expanding our intelligence.
Supercomputers will achieve one human brain capacity by 2010, and personal computers will do so by about 2020.
Biology is a software process. Our bodies are made up of trillions of cells, each governed by this process. You and I are walking around with outdated software running in our bodies, which evolved in a very different era.
Sometimes people talk about conflict between humans and machines, and you can see that in a lot of science fiction. But the machines we're creating are not some invasion from Mars. We create these tools to expand our own reach.
New technologies can be used for destructive purposes. The answer is to develop rapid-response systems for new dangers like a bioterrorist creating a new biological virus.
Science fiction is the great opportunity to speculate on what could happen. It does give me, as a futurist, scenarios.
People say we're running out of energy. That's only true if we stick with these old 19th century technologies. We are awash in energy from the sunlight.
By the time we get to the 2040s, we'll be able to multiply human intelligence a billionfold. That will be a profound change that's singular in nature. Computers are going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Ultimately, they will go inside our bodies and brains and make us healthier, make us smarter.
The Blue Brain project expects to have a full human-scale simulation of the cerebral cortex by 2018. I think that's a little optimistic, actually, but I do make the case that by 2029 we will have very detailed models and simulations of all the different brain regions.
When you talk to a human in 2035, you'll be talking to someone that's a combination of biological and non-biological intelligence.
Life expectancy is a statistical phenomenon. You could still be hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow.
As order exponentially increases, time exponentially speeds up.
The telephone is virtual reality in that you can meet with someone as if you are together, at least for the auditory sense.
I do have to pick my priorities. Nobody can do everything.
