The Singularity on the Horizon: A Kurzweil-Inspired Map of What’s Next
A quick guide to the coming decades—mind uploading, brain nanobots, full-immersion VR, legal personhood for machines, and the moment AI eclipses human intelligence—grounded in Ray Kurzweil’s forecasts and cross-checked against current tech reporting.
Sources: Kurzweil’s site & Futurism
A Journey of Innovation
2019
Three-dimensional nanotube lattices are the dominant computing substrate
2019
The digital world makes paper books and documents almost completely obsolete
2019
Total power of all computers is comparable to total brainpower of the human race
2019
Computers are embedded everywhere in our environment (furniture, jewelry, walls, etc)
2019
Creative AI is now capable of making complex art and music
2019
Autonomous vehicles now dominate our roads
2019
Humans begin to develop deep relationships with AI
2019
Language translation machines are now routinely used in conversation
2029
The manufacturing, agricultural and transportation sectors of the economy are almost entirely automated
2029
Computers are now capable of autonomously learning and creating new knowledge
2029
A $1,000 USD personal computer is now 1,000x more powerful than the human brain
2029
Advanced brain mapping leads to hundreds of distinct subregions in the brain being identified
2029
VR eyeglasses and heaphones are replaced with computer implants
2029
Artificial intelligences claim to be conscious and openly petition for recognition of this fact
2030s
Mind uploading becomes successful and perfected and humans become software based
2030s
Nanomachines are directly inserted into the brain to control incoming and outgoing signals
2030s
Brain nanobots are now capable of eliciting emotional responses from users
2040s
People spend most of their time in full-immersion virtual reality
2040s
Nonbiological intelligence is now billions of times more capable than biological intelligence
2045 — THE SINGULARITY
2045
$1000 now buys a computer a billion times more intelligence than every human being combined
2045
AI surpasses human beings as the smartest and most capable life forms on the planet
2049
Artificial food is commonly “assembled” by nanomachines
2049
The distinction between virtual reality and “real” reality becomes confounded due to foglets (self-assembled tiny robots)
2099
Some humans at least as old as the Baby Boomers are still alive and well
2099
Natural human thinking now possesses no advantage over computer minds
2099
Machines have attained equal legal status with humans
2099
Computer viruses are a major threat since most intelligent beings are software-based
2099
Artificial intelligences create super powerful planet-sized computers throughout the universe
2099
Organic human beings are a small minority of the intelligent life forms on Earth
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