Ray Kurzweil, Google’s Director of Engineering, has maintained his view over the years that AI will reach human intelligence by 2029, but now the search engine expert has said machines will exceed humans intelligence 16 years following that.
The point where robots become smarter than humans is known as the ‘singularity’, and that is a little less than two decades away, say experts.
The year 2045 will be where AI comes into its own and become the most intelligent species on the planet, according to Mr Kurzweil.
He told Futurism: “2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence.
“I have set the date 2045 for the ‘Singularity’ which is when we will multiply our effective intelligence a billion fold by merging with the intelligence we have created.”
Mr Kurzweil has also said that the process is already underway, and soon humans will begin merging with machines.
The Google boss said the process is already underway and our reliance on smartphones is just the beginning of the dawn of us becoming part machine.
Mr Kurzweil said at a recent SXSW event: “That leads to computers having human intelligence, our putting them inside our brains, connecting them to the cloud, expanding who we are. Today, that’s not just a future scenario.
“It’s here, in part, and it’s going to accelerate.
“What’s actually happening is [machines] are powering all of us.
“They’re making us smarter. They may not yet be inside our bodies, but, by the 2030s, we will connect our neocortex, the part of our brain where we do our thinking, to the cloud.
“We’re going to get more neocortex, we’re going to be funnier, we’re going to be better at music. We’re going to be sexier.
“We’re really going to exemplify all the things that we value in humans to a greater degree.”