Kurzweil, Raymond

1952–

Computer Scientist and Futurist

Raymond Kurzweil is a scientist whose innovations in human-computer interaction have made him particularly well-qualified as a commentator on how the computers of today will evolve into what he calls the “spiritual” and “intelligent” machines of tomorrow. But his vision of a future in which minds merge with machines has proved controversial, prompting equally controversial calls for high-tech research to be carefully controlled.

Although he has been many things in his life—child prodigy, high-tech entrepreneur, champion of the disabled—Ray Kurzweil might best be described as a pragmatic pioneer of human-computer interaction. While academics and theorists were speculating about the psychological Berlin Wall between humans and machines, he had already discovered the loose bricks.

In 1974, shortly after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with degrees in computer science and creative writing, Kurzweil developed the process of optical-character recognition (OCR), the technique by which a computer can “read” text printed in almost any font. The following year, he developed the first speech synthesizer, which could read text aloud, and the first flatbed optical scanner using charge-coupled display (CCD) video technology. These technologies were put to good use in his best-known product, the award-winning Kurzweil Reading Machine (KRM). Arguably the most important development in the education and empowerment of the blind since the invention of Braille, this photocopier-like device could scan and recognize printed documents, then read them aloud. Kurzweil's OCR technology was later bought by Xerox, and is now used in its TextBridge products.

Kurzweil was no less innovative in the 1980s and 1990s. One of the KRM's most enthusiastic users was musician Stevie Wonder, who describes Kurzweil as “truly among the sunshines of my life.” Together, they developed the revolutionary Kurzweil Music Synthesizer (KMS), which could successfully copy the sounds of grand pianos and other acoustic instruments using advanced sound-modeling techniques. Around the same time, Kurzweil began to pioneer voice-recognition products, ultimately launching the first voice-dictation system for Windows (1994) as well as the first continuous-speech, natural-language voice control system (1997), which allowed users to operate their PC [Page 277]applications using voice commands alone. Later, he sold these technologies to Lernout and Hauspie.

Although Kurzweil continues to develop innovative technologies that break down the barriers between humans and machines, most recently experimenting with expert systems to play the financial markets, he is now equally well known as a futurist. He has long been in demand as a keynote speaker and journalist, and his speeches and writings are characterized by an enthusiastic vision of how computer technology and human minds will eventually overcome one another's limitations. This theme was developed at length in Kurzweil's two bestselling books, The Age of Intelligent Machines (1990) and The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (1999). Among the ideas explored in these books was “reinstantiation,” Kurzweil's prediction that human personalities will eventually be “downloaded” into computers that will “claim to be people, and to have the full range of emotional and spiritual experiences that people claim to have.” In November 2000, in a speech to the Foresight Institute's Conference on Nanotechnology, Kurzweil predicted: “By the end of this century, I don't think there will be a clear distinction between human and machine.”

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