When it comes to the future, we need to change the way we think about innovation, says internationally renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil.

Speaking to a crowd of more than 500 people at the Fredericton Convention Centre — including more than 200 students from District 18 high schools and the University of New Brunswick — Kurzweil delivered the keynote address at the city’s first goFred X conference Thursday afternoon.

“Our intuition about the future is linear, not exponential,” he said, using the Internet as an example to explain why this traditional idea of technology as something that develops slowly doesn’t make sense. “You could see it (the Internet) coming a mile away if you looked at the exponential trajectory. People look at the past… but it doesn’t apply to the future.”

Known for his expertise in technology forecasting, Kurzweil has worked in the artificial intelligence field for more than 30 years. […]