The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

by Ray Kurzweil

As for the examples I just mentioned, from 2016 to 2019, the most recent period for which comprehensive data is available at the time of this writing, the estimated number of people worldwide in extreme poverty (measured by the benchmark of living on less than $2.15 per day in 2017 dollars) declined from roughly 787 million to 697 million.[4] If that trend has been roughly maintained until the present in terms of annual percentage decline, it corresponds to almost a 4 percent drop per year, or around 0.011 percent per day. While there is considerable uncertainty over the precise number, we can be reasonably confident that this is correct to within an order of magnitude. Meanwhile, UNESCO found that from 2015 to 2020 (again, the most recent data available), worldwide literacy rose from about 85.5 to 86.8 percent.[5] That averages about 0.0008 percent per day. And during the same 2015–2020 span, the proportion of the world’s population with access to “basic” or “safely managed” sanitation facilities (flush toilets or similar) increased from an estimated 73 to 78 percent.[6] This translates to an average improvement of around 0.003 percent per day. Numerous similar trends are constantly unfolding.