The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

by Ray Kurzweil

That said, these changes haven’t affected all areas of the economy evenly. For example, despite dramatic deflation in computing prices, health care has been getting more expensive faster than overall inflation—so someone who needs a lot of medical treatments may not be comforted much by how much cheaper GPU cycles are getting.[104] The good news, though, is that artificial intelligence and technological convergence will turn more and more kinds of goods and services into information technologies during the 2020s and 2030s—allowing them to benefit from the kinds of exponential trends that have already brought such radical deflation to the digital realm. Advanced AI tutors will make possible individually tailored learning on any subject, accessible at scale to anyone with an internet connection. AI-enhanced medicine and drug discovery are still in their infancy as of this writing but will ultimately play a major role in bringing down health-care costs.