Make it to the year 2045 and you can live forever, the controversial futurist claims. So how’s his personal quest for immortality going?

For Ray Kurzweil, it’s all about patterns. The ultimate pattern that preoccupies him is the human brain. Kurzweil believes the exponential growth of artificial intelligence, biotechnology and nanotechnology means that before 2050 the full intricacy of his brain — and, he hopes, his consciousness and identity — can be copied and uploaded into a non-biological substrate. His goal — obsession, if you will  — is to surf the accelerating high-tech tsunami long enough to transcend biology and achieve the dream of immortality….

If he’s right, before 2050 all information-based technologies will be millions of times more advanced and AI will far outshine the power of all human brains combined — development so explosive it is best described as The Singularity, a term he borrowed from other futurists but made his own. […]

(Image: New Scientist)