Our executive team attended South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW) in Austin, Texas last month. There, we typically explore how we’ll be using technology in two to three years’ time. This year, however, Ray Kurzweil helped us to look 20 years ahead.
In his keynote address with TIME Magazine’s Lev Grossman on March 12, inventor, author and futurist Ray Kurzweil championed how we are smarter because of mobile technology. He went on to say that mobile technology will continue to enhance our lives, rather than take it over like sci-fi movies and technology opposers may suggest.
Kurzweil is no stranger to technology innovation. At age 17, he developed a computer that could score its own musical compositions, effectively blurring the lines between human thought and artificial intelligence. You can watch Kurzweil present his early invention in the 1965 episode of “I’ve Got a Secret” with Steve Allen and guests.
Since then, Kurzweil has championed innovative technology to help the blind translate the printed page into speech. He’s also created technology that has improved electronic music and computer processing. He’s even invented the world’s smallest text-to-speech mobile device in a partnership with Motorola and National Federation for the Blind.
Kurzweil believes continued innovation will lead to life-enhancing cohorts of human thought and artificial intelligence that aids healthcare, intuitive communication and daily life. To back his predictions, Kurzweil monitors a rapidly increasing rate of innovation.
“The pace of change is getting faster,” says Kurzweil in an episode of Life Matters, originally aired on ABC’s Radio Network. “It took 400 years for the printing press to reach a large audience. 50 years for the telephone. 7 years for cellphones. Social networks, wikis and blogs took 3 years to reach a quarter of the [developed] world.”
The goal of biologically-inspired innovations and a tech-driven existence, Kurzweil hopes, is that we can quickly and intelligently fix the problems throughout our world.
Can you picture how our lives will be enhanced by mobile technology in, say, 20 years? Google’s Project Glass is at work on a game-changing way to interact with our environment, our preferred brands and our friends. Imagine how your business will fit in.
