The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

by Ray Kurzweil

If you can live long enough for anti-aging research to start adding at least one year to your remaining life expectancy annually, that will buy enough time for nanomedicine to cure any remaining facets of aging. This is longevity escape velocity.[100] This is why there is sound logic behind Aubrey de Grey’s sensational declaration that the first person to live to 1,000 years has likely already been born. If the nanotechnology of 2050 solves enough issues of aging for 100-year-olds to start living to 150, we’ll then have until 2100 to solve whatever new problems may crop up at that age. With AI playing a key role in research by then, progress during that time will be exponential. So even though these projections are admittedly startling, and even sound absurd to our intuitive linear thinking—we have solid reasons to see this as a likely future.