The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

by Ray Kurzweil

Lagarde’s last challenge to me was that land is not going to become an information technology, and that we are already very crowded. I replied that we are crowded because we chose to crowd together in dense groups. Cities came about to make possible our working and playing together. But try taking a train trip anywhere in the world and you will see that almost all of the habitable land remains unoccupied—only 1 percent of it is built up for human living.[215] Only about half of the habitable land is directly used by humans at all, almost all of it dedicated to agriculture—and among agricultural land, 77 percent is used for livestock, grazing, and feed, with only 23 percent for crops for human consumption.[216] Cultured meat and vertical farming will enable these needs to be met with only a small fraction of the land we now use. This will make possible a greater abundance of healthy food and accommodate an increasing population while still freeing up huge areas of land. Autonomous vehicles will facilitate less-crowded land use by making longer commutes practical, and we will increasingly be able to live wherever we want while still being able to work and play together in virtual and augmented spaces.