How To Create A Mind: Ray Kurzweil at TEDxSiliconAlley

I have been aware and an admirer of Ray Kurzweil for over 40 years now ever since his relationship with Stevie Wonder started because of the Kurzweil Reading Machine, and a few years later Kurzweil started the Kurzweil Music Systems on a challenge by Stevie to design a way to come with a technology that could produce the sounds of real acoustic instruments - which he did. Ever since the age of internet, I have read every article or watched every video he has appeared in, and this is one of his finest - he should give a series of 50 one hour talks - he could probably do it unscripted without ever repeating himself - other than for emphasis, the world would be an immensely better place for it if he would be gracious enough to do it.

Such a bright man presenting so many wonderful things to think about. Thank you, Dr. Kurzweil, for all your brilliant contributions to humanity. Looking forward to many more!

Kurzweil's most interesting prediction, I think, is that through life and technology the universe is impelled to evolve into a "large mind." Here's a quote for the kids- "Intelligence is very powerful. It is the most powerful force that we are aware of. Intelligence can overcome [supposed] natural limits – not through any kind of magic, but just by figuring ways to manipulate forces at finer and finer scales so that, ultimately, what seem to be natural limits can be superseded. It won’t take that long for us to do this at a solar-system scale and then a galaxy-wide scale. Ultimately, we will turn the universe into a large mind that is trillions of trillions of times greater than all of human intelligence today."

Kurzweil is an inspiration.  Love to see him and Diamandis on stage together.

Im some random guy from canada who can barely use a phone and watched this extremely baked.  (Long story) That random slideshow at the beginning (5:30)served as an excellent table of contents for the content of your speech, befroe settling on idea of accelerating returns, as it overloaded my brain in a jarring fashoin, stimulating attention and curiosity.  Desire to rewind and pause, read, learn.  Served as an excellent way of creating a snapshot of ideas to pursue. Table of contents idea, no explination yet easy to pause on youtube and read, expanded to be a fully fleshed idea for lectures, would be excellent. Basically all I know how to do is follow shit on youtube and hit like, so I hope this is read

Whether someone other than you believes or disbelieves doesn’t matter, the statistics and the science speak for itself. Each individual will form their own opinion and perception. Choices will be made based on this data, each in accordance with their own experiences. Personally I look forward to the improvements science offers. Humanity has come a long way. I look forward to what comes next and choose to embrace this future with an open mind. Thank you, Mr. Kurzweil, for your input.

Informative n interesting talk. Thank you, bless you. All your dreams come true.

Thanks you for the interesting video. I have followed Mr. Kurtweil for some time. I confess I did smile at the perfectly timed sign of ironic humor.

Damn that intro + professional headphones = ear rape.

He is very good at pointing out the accuracy of his predictions.

I think Ray is actually using my book mockup in this presentation. So cool :)

Well it's probably the most effective way of getting other people to understand, after all, not THAT many people have heard of him, so by going with a speech that he knows works will yield greater results.

Totally agree. The one thing though about aging itself is its exponential as your genes copy themselves over and over, errors become compounded. We can slow this process down and give it more quality as Ray Kurzweil is doing with his health regimen but you can't turn back the clock just yet. His speeches will continue to be more and more repetitive because of that but his achievements and brilliance cannot be understated.

14:10 I come here everyday just to watch this. Makes my day exponentially better

On an average, how long does TED take to upload the video after the talk takes place? This video says the talk took place in dec 2012, but the video was uploaded on mar 2013, so do they upload all the videos 3 months after the event happened?

So what will eternal life in the cloud be like? Imagine being in the audience of the Jerry Springer show for eternity...oops we accidentally created hell.  

I like how Ray Kurzweil isn't afraid to compliment himself for his intelligence and the # of predictions of his own he says came true.

This guy saw it all ! And he makes sure WE KNOW HE KNEW IT Give him a nobel please

Very humble intelligent individual.

Fantastic person and lovely speech