The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

by Ray Kurzweil

In addition, today’s poor are much better off in absolute terms due to the wide accessibility of free information and services via the internet—such as the ability to take MIT open courses or video-chat with family continents away.[129] Similarly, they benefit from the radically improved price-performance of computers and mobile phones in recent decades, but these are not properly reflected in economic statistics. (The failure of economic statistics to sufficiently capture the exponentially improving price-performance of products and services influenced by information technology is discussed in greater detail in the next chapter.) Someone with an inexpensive smartphone today can use the internet to quickly and easily access almost all of the world’s educational information, translate languages, find directions, and much more. This capability would not have been available, even for many millions of dollars, a few decades ago.

This is comically out of touch.