You figure out who Bill Maris is on his bookshelf. There’s The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, published in 2005, the seminal work by futurist Ray Kurzweil.

He famously predicted that in 2045, humankind will have its Terminator moment — the rise of computers will outpace our ability to control them. To keep up, we will radically transform our biology via nanobots and other machines that will enhance our anatomy and our DNA, changing everything about how we live and die.

“It will liberate us from our own limitations,” says Maris. Kurzweil is a friend. Google hired him to help Maris and other Googlers understand a world in which machines surpass human biology.

To Maris, it’s business. “We have tools in life sciences to achieve anything you envision,” Maris says. “I hope to live long enough not to die.” […]