Raymond Kurzweil (/ˈkɜːrzwaɪl/ KURZ-wyle; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, entrepreneur, futurist, and inventor.

In 1965 he was invited to appear on the CBS television program I've Got a Secret,[13] where he performed a piano piece composed by a computer he had built.

[14] Later in the year, he won first prize in the International Science Fair for the invention;[15] his submission to Westinghouse Talent Search of his first computer program alongside several other projects resulted in his being one of the contest's national winners, for which President Lyndon B. Johnson personally congratulated him during a White House ceremony.

Development of these technologies was completed at other institutions like Bell Labs, and on January 13, 1976, the finished product was unveiled during a news conference headed by Kurzweil and the leaders of the National Federation of the Blind.

Products include the Kurzweil 1000 text-to-speech converter software program, which enables a computer to read electronic and scanned text aloud to blind or visually impaired users, and the Kurzweil 3000 program, a multifaceted electronic learning system that helps with reading, writing, and study skills.

[26] In his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil predicted that computers would one day be better than humans at making profitable investment decisions.

In December 2012, Google hired Kurzweil in a full-time position to "work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing".

After his death, he has a plan to be perfused with cryoprotectants, vitrified in liquid nitrogen, and stored at an Alcor facility in the hope that future medical technology will be able to revive him.

[37][38] Kurzweil has said: "I realize that most inventions fail not because the R&D department can't get them to work, but because the timing is wrong‍—‌not all of the enabling factors are at play where they are needed.

He claims to have constructed inventions, solved algorithmic, business strategy, organizational, and interpersonal problems, and written speeches in this state.

[49] On December 12, 2000, Columbia Records released the Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace's album Spiritual Machines.

[50] In his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil proposed "The Law of Accelerating Returns", according to which the rate of change in a wide variety of evolutionary systems (including the growth of technologies) tends to increase exponentially.

[52] Kurzweil was working with the Army Science Board in 2006 to develop a rapid response system to deal with the possible abuse of biotechnology.

He suggests that the proper place of regulation is to ensure that technological progress proceeds safely and quickly but does not deprive the world of profound benefits.

An overall strategy should include a streamlined regulatory process, a global program of monitoring for unknown or evolving biological pathogens, temporary moratoriums, raising public awareness, international cooperation, software reconnaissance, and fostering values of liberty, tolerance, and respect for knowledge and diversity.

"[54] Kurzweil admits that he cared little for his health until age 35, when he was found to suffer from a glucose intolerance, an early form of type II diabetes (a major risk factor for heart disease).

He then found a doctor, Terry Grossman, who shared his unconventional beliefs and helped him to develop an extreme regimen involving hundreds of pills, chemical intravenous treatments, red wine, and various other methods to attempt to extend his lifespan.

The university's self-described mission is to "assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity's grand challenges".

Kurzweil views the human body as a system of thousands of "programs" and believes that understanding all their functions could be the key to building truly sentient AI.

When The Age of Intelligent Machines was published, there were only 2.6 million Internet users in the world,[70] and the medium was unreliable, difficult to use, and deficient in content.

Additionally, Kurzweil claims to have correctly foreseen that the preferred mode of Internet access would be through wireless systems, and estimated that this development would become practical for widespread use in the early 21st century.

In Newsweek magazine, Daniel Lyons criticized Kurzweil for some of his incorrect predictions for 2009, such as that the economy would continue to boom, that a U.S. company would have a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion, that a supercomputer would achieve 20 petaflops, that speech recognition would be in widespread use, and that cars would drive themselves using sensors installed in highways.

He expounds on his prediction about nanorobotics, claiming that within 20 years millions of blood-cell sized devices, known as nanobots, will fight disease inside our bodies and improve our memory and cognitive abilities.

"[9] In 2008, Kurzweil said in an expert panel in the National Academy of Engineering that solar power will scale up to produce all the energy needs of Earth's people in 20 years.

[80] Although technological singularity is a popular concept in science fiction, authors such as Neal Stephenson[81] and Bruce Sterling have voiced skepticism about its real-world plausibility.

[82][83] Other prominent AI thinkers and computer scientists such as Daniel Dennett,[84] Rodney Brooks,[85] David Gelernter,[86] and Paul Allen[87] have also criticized Kurzweil's projections.

[88] Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy agrees with Kurzweil's timeline of future progress, but thinks that technologies such as AI, nanotechnology, and advanced biotechnology will create a dystopian world.

[89] Lotus Development Corporation founder Mitch Kapor has called the notion of a technological singularity "intelligent design for the IQ 140 people...

"[26] Cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter has said of Kurzweil's and Hans Moravec's books: "It's an intimate mixture of rubbish and good ideas, and it's very hard to disentangle the two, because these are smart people; they're not stupid.

[49][91] Physicist and futurist Theodore Modis claims that Kurzweil's thesis of a technological singularity lacks scientific rigor.