Boston Consulting Group predicts that consumer robotics will become a $9 billion market by 2025. So it’s no surprise that 1,600 attendees from 29 countries converged on the Robo Business conference — an influential event on business transformation through robotics innovation.

Fittingly for a conference discussing the viability of robotics, the closing keynote was futurist, inventor Ray Kurzweil, author of book The Singularity Is Near, and now a director of engineering at Google, with a focus on machine intelligence and natural language understanding.

Kurzweil’s keynote was packed with a whirlwind tour through computing history, bringing us right up to date with 3D printed organs, populated by stem cells.

“Reprogramming biology as a software program to overcome disease is the next frontier,” Kurzweil said. He talked about turning on and off genes and “putting our neocortex on the cloud” so we become a hybrid of biological and non-biological processes, augmenting our limited capabilities, especially while aging.

As the conference drew to a close, Kurzweil said he thought a machine will pass the Turing test convincingly in 2029. There were many people at Robo Business who are spending a lot of money in the hope that that day comes.

related reading:
Boston Consulting Group | main
Boston Consulting Group | “The rise of robotics” — report

Electronic House Publishing | Robo Business
Electronic House Publishing | Robotics Trends
Electronic House Publishing | Robotics Business Review