The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

by Ray Kurzweil

Again, if it is at all possible to circumvent the speed-of-light limitation, the vast intelligence we will have with solar system-scale intelligence will be able to design and implement the requisite engineering to do so. If I had to place a bet, I would put my money on the conjecture that circumventing the speed of light is possible and that we will be able to do this within the next couple of hundred years. But that is speculation on my part, as we do not yet understand these issues sufficiently to make a more definitive statement. If the speed of light is an immutable barrier, and no shortcuts through wormholes exist that can be exploited, it will take billions of years, not hundreds, to saturate the universe with our intelligence, and we will be limited to our light cone within the universe. In either event the exponential growth of computation will hit a wall during the twenty-second century. (But what a wall!)