Futurist inventor Ray Kurzweil blurs the boundaries between man and machine. Futurist forecasting has long been the object of strange fascination. Specific doomsday predictions — whether derived from the Mayan calendar or calculated by Christian radio host Harold Camping — have earned widespread media coverage, prompting no small amount of ridicule and what almost seemed like disappointment the day after.

As the Amazing Criswell dramatically intoned at the beginning of Plan 9 From Outer Space, “We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.” And those lives, in one form or another, extend further into the future than most of us imagine. Even science fiction writers have had trouble keeping up with exponentially increasing scientific breakthroughs, from nanotechnology to artificial intelligence, that can be both hopeful and troubling. […]