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Ray Kurzweil is an expert at predicting the future. In tracking our progress in the technological-evolutionary journey, Kurzweil has identified six epochs, each of which is characterized by a major paradigm shift.

Presumably, if we better anticipate its timeline, we will carve a path that makes the Singularity era most beneficial to our species.

Ray Kurzweil has developed six epochs for stages in the evolution of information.

Bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe questions the basic premise of the Singularity concept, arguing that it “misunderstands the complex nature of biological and physical life.” 

A forum where top mixologists explore the party drinks defining the 21st Century.  

Ageing and death are not something human beings generally look forward to but biologists say that immortality could prove a disadvantage to the survival of our species.

So you want to live forever? Double-check your motives, says ethicist Paul Root Wolpe. 

The fusion of mind and machine—what futurist Ray Kurzweil calls the Singularity—depends on the faulty premise that our understanding of neurobiology increases exponentially. 

There are hundreds of intelligent things that computers are doing that are part of our everyday lives that used to require human intelligence.

Nanotechnology isn’t going away. In fact, it promises to impact so many industries that the word will become ubiquitous in our daily lives.

One billion people live beyond the reach of existing ports, roads, bridges and trains. An organization called Matternet is using exponential technology to “replace twentieth century centralized infrastructure” and accelerate economic growth for the ‘rising billion.’

What a wonderful surprise it is for us to find today that Time magazine has rated Big Think number 1 in News & Info in its list of The 50 […]

Which scientific idea–offered up by experts such as Ray Kurzweil, Michio Kaku, Stephen Hawking and others–will impact our world the most? See our top contenders and vote for your favorite.

The new experimental “brain chips” developed by researchers at IBM and DARPA represent a fundamental breakthrough in computing power. If these brain chips are ever commercialized, they would make possible what are essentially thinking, artificial brains. 

Guest Post by Michael Phillips (Web/Social Strategist for Dr. Kaku) @MyGrayMatter, ScitechFB In late February, Dr. Kaku posted a blog entry called ‘The Technological Singularity and Merging with Machines‘ which talked […]

The scientific concept that will most impact our world is the idea that will unify two opposite ideas, those of Newton and Einstein, says Big Thinker Ajitkumar Tampi Trivikram.

The always fascinating English philosophic intellectual John Gray has written a book about the various ways most of the leading philosophers and scientists of the late 19th and early 20th […]

The doubling of computer processing speed every 18 months, known as Moore’s Law, is just one manifestation of the greater trend that all technological change occurs at an exponential rate. 

Our famous novelist Jonathan Franzen gave quite the challenging commencement address at Kenyon.  Here’s what he said about technology and eros: Let me toss out the idea that, as our […]

Solar power, driven by exponentially-increasing nanotechnology, will satisfy the entire world’s energy needs in 16 years. 

If you can survive for 34 more years, you have a good shot at living forever, says futurist Ray Kurzweil. Here are his three favorite dietary supplements that will make […]

Once humans and machines merge—in 2045, according to Kurzweil—reproduction will no longer be a biological necessity. So why and how will we continue to have sex?

BY JASON SILVA “Limited in his nature, infinite in his desire, man is a fallen god who remembers heaven.”   –Alphonse de Lamartine, French romantic poet. PART I: DREAMING WITH […]

I have to admit I’ve been warming up a bit to the out-there techno-optimism of Ray Kurzweil displayed so prominently on BIG THINK.  He (like lots of people) has been […]

Submit your questions now in advance of Big Think’s interview with this controversial thinker and visionary. 

If futurists like Ray Kurzweil are correct about the accelerating pace of technological breakthrough, it is only a matter of time until we augment our brains with machine components.

In part 4 of CNBC’s Business of Innovation TV special, co-hosts Maria Bartiromo and Roger Schank explore the role of people & technology in the innovation process. They kick off […]

n nMemo to self: the singularity is here. The following description of the Blade Runner Generation in the Times Online (U.K.) sounds a lot like Ray Kurzweil’s singularity: “For the […]

Will man really become immortal in the year 2045? The singularity movement is gaining momentum in the science world and in the media.  

Chances are, you’re at least familiar with “the singularity” even if you’ve never picked up Ray Kurzweil’s book or read anything at all about “transhumanism” or “augmented reality” or HET […]