Kurzweil explained he had made this prediction at the turn of the 21st century.
“I actually said that in 1999,” Kurzweil said. “I said we would match any person by 2029, so 30 years. People thought that was totally crazy. In fact, Stanford had a conference that invited several hundred people from around the world to talk about my prediction, and people thought that this would happen, but not by 2029. They thought it would take 100 years.”
Rogan asked Kurzweil if this disparity in opinion was because people have a difficult time grasping the concept of exponential growth, which the futurist explained was “exactly right.”
“In fact, still, economists have a linear view,” Kurzweil said. “If you say well, it’s going to grow exponentially, but yeah, maybe 2% a year. It actually doubles in 14 years.”
RAY KURZWEIL PREDICTS COMPUTERS WILL BE AS SMART AS HUMANS IN 12 YEARS
Kurzweil, who has also served as Google’s director of engineering, is known for his far-flung predictions.
For example, in his book, The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil predicts that human beings would soon “transcend biology” and traverse the universe as immortal cyborgs. He also thinks he will live forever after he uploads his consciousness onto a computer.
