Futurist, author and computer scientist predicts human immortality possible by 2030

Futurist Ray Kurzweil believes humans will reach immortality by 2030, coinciding with AI reaching singularity, or parallel intelligence with humans.

The American computer science expert and MIT graduate has a history of making correct estimations which, in their time, may have sounded quite unrealistic.

In 2010, Kurzweil reviewed his own predictions made since 1990 and found of 147 that he’d made, a total of 115 were “entirely correct”, reports IFL Science.

A further 12 were essentially correct, and only three were entirely wrong.

Kurzweil’s incorrect predictions, include self-driving cars being implemented worldwide by 2009 was out by a number of years.

He said in 1990 that within 10 years a computer could beat the world’s best chess player. That happened.

He now says AI will reach “human levels of intelligence” by 2029 and a year later immortality will follow.

He told Futurism: “2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence.

Speaking to computer scientist Lex Fridman on a podcast, Kurzweil said humans will be able to “advance human life expectancy” by “more than a year every year and I think we can get there by the end of this decade”.

He also believes we will be kept healthy by devices that travel in our bloodstream and could eventually begin uploading our consciousness to the cloud.

Kurzwell says such advancements are not necessarily frightening and will make humans “godlike”.

“We’re going to be funnier. We’re going to be sexier. We’re going to be better at expressing loving sentiment,” he told NOEMA in 2015.

Reactions to Kurzwell´s predictions in the Mirror are sceptical: “So where will all these eternals live. How will they be fed? Utter BS”

And another: “Immortality, no thank you, especially now my beloved father and mother have passed, dad in 85 and mother in 2021, I personally would prefer natural death over electronic life so no, I will pass on artificial living.”