Raymond Kurzweil

Ray Kurzweil (2005)

Raymond "Ray" Kurzweil [ ˈkɜrzwaɪl ] (born February 12, 1948 in Queens , New York City ) is an American author, inventor, futurist and Director of Engineering (head of technical development) at Google LLC .

He is a pioneer in optical text recognition (OCR), speech synthesis (computer-read texts), speech recognition , flatbed scanner technology and in the field of electronic musical instruments, especially keyboards .

A well-known non-fiction author, he writes on topics such as health , artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism , technological singularity, and futurology .

biography

Raymond Kurzweil, son of a Jewish family from the New York borough of Queens who left Austria in 1939 shortly before the start of World War II , studied computer science and literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1970 . He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his accomplishments in 2002 and received the National Medal of Technology from President Bill Clinton . Bill Gates speaks of him as a “leading expert in the field of artificial intelligence”.

In 1983, Raymond founded Kurzweil Music Systems in the USA . The production of synthesizers that were able to produce natural sounds of good quality was a great challenge at that time.

The idea of ​​founding a company for electronic musical instruments arose out of the friendship with the blind musician Stevie Wonder . In 1976 he heard of an invention by Kurzweil, the " Kurzweil Reading Machine ", and immediately contacted the creator. This device made it possible for the visually impaired to have access to normal printed texts for the first time by converting the words into acoustic signals, ie “reading them out”. The Reading Machine is still regarded as the biggest milestone on the social integration of visually impaired after 1829 introduced Braille on Braille .

Encouraged by Stevie Wonder, Raymond Kurzweil launched the so-called Kurzweil K250 synthesizer in 1984 . This revolutionary instrument produced the sounds of various acoustic instruments in an outstanding quality for its time. As a thank you for the musical support, Raymond Kurzweil produced a special model of the K250 for Stevie Wonder, which could be controlled by voice commands.

Kurzweil Music Systems was sold to the Korean Young Chang Akki Co. Ltd. in 1989 . sold, but kept the brand name "Kurzweil".

In 2002 he made a $ 20,000 bet with the so-called Long Bet One that in 2029 a computer or “machine intelligence” would pass the Turing test .

In December 2012 Kurzweil became "Director of Engineering" at Google.

Ray Kurzweil is mentioned as a minor character in Frank Schätzing's novel The Swarm , where a neuron computer he developed simulates the Yrr's way of thinking .

Kurzweil is one of the most famous thought leaders in transhumanism . He predicts an exponential increase in information technology development in 2045 : a singularity that enables artificial intelligence with which humanity can achieve immortality .

honors and awards

Ray Kurzweil has received the following awards and honors:

• 1965: First place in the International Science Fair for his invention of a computer that generates classical music
• 1978: Awarded the Grace Murray Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery . This award is presented annually and is endowed with $ 35,000 in prize money. Kurzweil won him over for inventing the Kurzweil Reading Machine
• 1990: Engineer of the Year Award from Design News
• 1994: Received the Dickson Prize in Science from Carnegie Mellon University, endowed with $ 50,000
• 1998: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Inventor of the Year
• 1999: National Medal of Technology
• 2000: Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology
• 2001: Lemelson MIT Prize, which is endowed with $ 500,000
• 2009: Elected Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Raymond Kurzweil has also received 20 honorary doctorates from various institutions. He was also honored by three US presidents, including Bill Clinton with the National Medal of Technology, the highest technology award in the USA.

Attitude to religion

Although Kurzweil's parents were Jewish, they brought him up in a Unitarian manner . In “The Singularity is Near” he describes the need for a new ethic based on the principles of mutual respect.

criticism

Kurzweil's ideas are controversial. While his proponents see him as an artificial intelligence visionary and a computer genius, his critics see his method as unscientific and some of his promises as quasi-religious.

Works

• Ray Kurzweil: AI. The age of artificial intelligence . Hanser, Munich Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-446-17375-7 . (Original title: The Age of Intelligent Machines )
• Ray Kurzweil: Homo S @ piens . Econ Tb., 1999, ISBN 3-548-75026-5 . (Original title: The Age of Spiritual Machines )
• Ray Kurzweil, Terry Grossman : Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever . Plume, New York 2005, ISBN 0-452-28667-0 .
• Ray Kurzweil: Humanity 2.0 . Lola Books, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-944203-04-1 . (Original title: The Singularity Is Near )
• Ray Kurzweil, Terry Grossman: Transcend . Rodale, New York 2009, ISBN 978-1-60529-207-6 .
• Ray Kurzweil: How to Create a Mind . Viking, 2012, ISBN 978-0-670-02529-9 .
• Ray Kurzweil: The Secret of Human Thought . Lola Books, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-944203-06-5 . (Original title: How to Create a Mind )
• Ray Kurzweil: Danielle. Chronicles of a superhero. Lola Books, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3944203409 .
• Ray Kurzweil: How you can become a Danielle . Lola Books, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3944203416 .

See also

• Accelerating change (law of accelerating utility)

literature

• Michael K. Iwoleit : Prophet of the Singularity. The empty future of Ray Kurzweil. In: Sascha Mamczak , Wolfgang Jeschke (ed.): Das Science Fiction Jahr 2007. Heyne, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-453-52261-9 , pp. 537-563.

documentation

• Transcendent Man. The Life and Ideas of Ray Kurzweil . 84 min, USA 2011, director: Barry Ptolemy.

Web links

Commons : Raymond Kurzweil  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Raymond Kurzweil in the catalog of the German National Library
• Kurzweil Music Systems (English)
• KurzweilAI.net, discussion and demonstration of artificial intelligence and future forecasts (English)
• Kurzweil Technologies, Overview of Kurzweil's businesses (English)
• On the hunt for immortality (Interview in What is Enlightenment? Magazine) ( Memento from January 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
• Will we live forever, Mister Kurzweil? (Interview in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 23, 2008, p. Z6)
• Long Bet One By 2029 no computer - or "machine intelligence" - will have passed the Turing Test.
• Documentary Plug & Pray with Raymond Kurzweil and Joseph Weizenbaum
• The future of people and technology: Interview with Ray Kurzweil
• Forbes: Interview: How Ray Kurzweil Plans To Revolutionize Search At Google

Individual evidence

1. ↑ CNN online article, now offline ( memento of the original from July 8, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Ray Kurzweil starts at Google. heise.de, December 17, 2012, accessed on December 17, 2012 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b} Ray Kurzweil starts at Google. Spiegel online, December 17, 2012, accessed December 17, 2012 . 
4. ↑ Heike Buchter, Burkhard Straßmann: The Immortals. In: time. March 27, 2013, accessed December 27, 2014 . 
5. ↑ Documentation website .