Ray Kurzweil, the 64-Year-Old Futurist, will appear at SXSW Interactive for the first time March 12 to take part in a keynote conversation. An MIT graduate and subject of the 2009 doc Transcendent Man, he has developed groundbreaking speech-recognition programs, advanced music synthesizers and artificial-intelligence investment software through his Wellesley, Mass.-based Kurzweil Technologies.

His fans range from Stevie Wonder, who challenged him to create Kurzweil Music Systems, to Roland Emmerich, who sought his advice on the sci-fi script Singularity he is developing. To preview what’s on Kurzweil’s mind, Damon Lindelof, co-creator of the mind-bending series Lost and co-writer of Fox’s June sci-fi release Prometheus, conducted an exclusive interview for The Hollywood Reporter. […]