Post by jeffolie on Dec 16, 2012 11:29:12 GMT -6
Google's new director of engineering: Ray Kurzweil mad scientist
Will Google use Kurzweil as PR or will Google follow into his more bizarre thinking?
Kurzweil made money and fame with his create a new generation of music synthesizers capable of accurately duplicating the sounds of real instruments plus optical scanning.
Google may be using Kurzweil as a trophy symbol for his prediction of driverless cars now being accepted in many states.
Many would consider Kurzweil's views of immortality, having daily transfussions, consuming 150 pills per day as OVER THE TOP bizarre. His 'singularity' melding of humans with machines UNIVERSITY gets big funding strangely because its origins appear more sci fi than practical.
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Ray Kurzweil From Wikipedia
" .... involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He is the author of several books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is generally recognized as a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements, due to his stances on life extension technologies, his efforts to forecast future advances in technology, and his interest in the concept of the technological singularity. At the same time, he has attracted significant criticism from scientists and thinkers.
" ... his non-conventional beliefs to develop an extreme regimen involving hundreds of pills, chemical intravenous treatments, red wine and various other methods to attempt to live longer. Kurzweil ingests "250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea" every day and drinks several glasses of red wine a week in an effort to "reprogram" his biochemistry. Lately, he has cut down the number of supplement pills to 150.
Kurzweil joined the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryonics company. In the event of his death, Kurzweil's body will be chemically preserved, frozen in liquid nitrogen, and stored at an Alcor facility in the hope that future medical technology will be able to revive him.
He has authored three books on the subjects of nutrition, health and immortality: The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever and TRANSCEND: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever. In all, he recommends that other people emulate his health practices to the best of their abilities. Kurzweil and his current "anti-aging" doctor, Terry Grossman, MD., now have two websites promoting their first and second book.
He has stated that in the future, he believes everyone will live forever
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Google hires Ray Kurzweil as director of engineering
Kurzweil is an author, inventor and futurist, as well as co-founder of Singularity University
December 15, 2012
Ray Kurzweil will be joining Google as director of engineering, the famous author, inventor and futurist confirmed on his Website Friday. His first day of work will be Monday, December 1.
Kurzweil wrote a lengthy statement about why he joined Google, and what his focus would be as an employee there.
Kurzweil wrote that he has “been interested in technology, and machine learning in particular,” since he was 14, when he designed software to write original music, and invented a print-to-speech reaching machine for blind people, among other things he invented.
“I’ve always worked to create practical systems that will make a difference in people’s lives, which is what excites me as an inventor,” Kurzweil wrote.
Google, he said, has made his predictions come true, including “self-driving cars and mobile phones that could answer your questions.”
“People criticized these predictions as unrealistic,” Kurzweil said, but Google has made them a reality.
“It’s easy to shrug our collective shoulders as if these technologies have always been around, but we’re really on a remarkable trajectory of quickening innovation, and Google is at the forefront of much of this development.”
“I’m thrilled to be teaming up with Google to work on some of the hardest problems in computer science so we can turn the next decade’s ‘unrealistic’ visions into reality.”
A bit about Ray Kurzweil
First of all, if you are like me, then you have no idea what a "futurist is."
Basically, it's what it sounds like: they are usually authors, consultants or o rganizational leaders who, essentially, make predictions regarding the future based on global trends, different scenarios, emerging market opportunities and risk management.
Kurzweil had previously collaborated with Google for Singularity University, a training center for corporate executives and government officials, located on the campus of NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley.
Kurzweil is the co-founder, Chancellor & Trustee of the University. Members of the Google team are on the Singularity University faculty, along with experts and executives from Cisco, Nokia, Auto Desk, the Kauffman Foundation, ePlanet Ventures and others.
Singularity University offers a 10-week graduate studies program, as well as, shorter executive programs. SU also offers specialized programs designed to bring the unique and stimulating environment of SU to organizations outside of Silicon Valley.
Earlier this year, Kurzweil was featured in a Super Bowl ad from Best Buy, in which he called his creation of a computer that could recognize printed letters "a solution in search of a problem" that eventually evolved into the building blocks for programs such as Siri. Also featured in the commercial were SMS message innovator Neil Papworth to Instagram founder Kevin Systrom, Square founder Jim McKelvey and Shazam creators Chris Barton and Avery Wang.
Google could not be reached for comment, but provided the following statement to Gigaom:
“Ray’s contributions to science and technology, through research in character and speech recognition and machine learning, have led to technological achievements that have had an enormous impact on society — such as the Kurzweil Reading Machine, used by Stevie Wonder and others to have print read aloud. We appreciate his ambitious, long-term thinking, and we think his approach to problem-solving will be incredibly valuable to projects we’re working on at Google.”
vator.tv/news/2012-12-15-google-hires-ray-kurzweil-as-director-of-engineering
Will Google use Kurzweil as PR or will Google follow into his more bizarre thinking?
Kurzweil made money and fame with his create a new generation of music synthesizers capable of accurately duplicating the sounds of real instruments plus optical scanning.
Google may be using Kurzweil as a trophy symbol for his prediction of driverless cars now being accepted in many states.
Many would consider Kurzweil's views of immortality, having daily transfussions, consuming 150 pills per day as OVER THE TOP bizarre. His 'singularity' melding of humans with machines UNIVERSITY gets big funding strangely because its origins appear more sci fi than practical.
================================
Ray Kurzweil From Wikipedia
" .... involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He is the author of several books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is generally recognized as a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements, due to his stances on life extension technologies, his efforts to forecast future advances in technology, and his interest in the concept of the technological singularity. At the same time, he has attracted significant criticism from scientists and thinkers.
" ... his non-conventional beliefs to develop an extreme regimen involving hundreds of pills, chemical intravenous treatments, red wine and various other methods to attempt to live longer. Kurzweil ingests "250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea" every day and drinks several glasses of red wine a week in an effort to "reprogram" his biochemistry. Lately, he has cut down the number of supplement pills to 150.
Kurzweil joined the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryonics company. In the event of his death, Kurzweil's body will be chemically preserved, frozen in liquid nitrogen, and stored at an Alcor facility in the hope that future medical technology will be able to revive him.
He has authored three books on the subjects of nutrition, health and immortality: The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever and TRANSCEND: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever. In all, he recommends that other people emulate his health practices to the best of their abilities. Kurzweil and his current "anti-aging" doctor, Terry Grossman, MD., now have two websites promoting their first and second book.
He has stated that in the future, he believes everyone will live forever
=============================================
Google hires Ray Kurzweil as director of engineering
Kurzweil is an author, inventor and futurist, as well as co-founder of Singularity University
December 15, 2012
Ray Kurzweil will be joining Google as director of engineering, the famous author, inventor and futurist confirmed on his Website Friday. His first day of work will be Monday, December 1.
Kurzweil wrote a lengthy statement about why he joined Google, and what his focus would be as an employee there.
Kurzweil wrote that he has “been interested in technology, and machine learning in particular,” since he was 14, when he designed software to write original music, and invented a print-to-speech reaching machine for blind people, among other things he invented.
“I’ve always worked to create practical systems that will make a difference in people’s lives, which is what excites me as an inventor,” Kurzweil wrote.
Google, he said, has made his predictions come true, including “self-driving cars and mobile phones that could answer your questions.”
“People criticized these predictions as unrealistic,” Kurzweil said, but Google has made them a reality.
“It’s easy to shrug our collective shoulders as if these technologies have always been around, but we’re really on a remarkable trajectory of quickening innovation, and Google is at the forefront of much of this development.”
“I’m thrilled to be teaming up with Google to work on some of the hardest problems in computer science so we can turn the next decade’s ‘unrealistic’ visions into reality.”
A bit about Ray Kurzweil
First of all, if you are like me, then you have no idea what a "futurist is."
Basically, it's what it sounds like: they are usually authors, consultants or o rganizational leaders who, essentially, make predictions regarding the future based on global trends, different scenarios, emerging market opportunities and risk management.
Kurzweil had previously collaborated with Google for Singularity University, a training center for corporate executives and government officials, located on the campus of NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley.
Kurzweil is the co-founder, Chancellor & Trustee of the University. Members of the Google team are on the Singularity University faculty, along with experts and executives from Cisco, Nokia, Auto Desk, the Kauffman Foundation, ePlanet Ventures and others.
Singularity University offers a 10-week graduate studies program, as well as, shorter executive programs. SU also offers specialized programs designed to bring the unique and stimulating environment of SU to organizations outside of Silicon Valley.
Earlier this year, Kurzweil was featured in a Super Bowl ad from Best Buy, in which he called his creation of a computer that could recognize printed letters "a solution in search of a problem" that eventually evolved into the building blocks for programs such as Siri. Also featured in the commercial were SMS message innovator Neil Papworth to Instagram founder Kevin Systrom, Square founder Jim McKelvey and Shazam creators Chris Barton and Avery Wang.
Google could not be reached for comment, but provided the following statement to Gigaom:
“Ray’s contributions to science and technology, through research in character and speech recognition and machine learning, have led to technological achievements that have had an enormous impact on society — such as the Kurzweil Reading Machine, used by Stevie Wonder and others to have print read aloud. We appreciate his ambitious, long-term thinking, and we think his approach to problem-solving will be incredibly valuable to projects we’re working on at Google.”
vator.tv/news/2012-12-15-google-hires-ray-kurzweil-as-director-of-engineering