In Search of the Sixth Sense

FC: Is that an argument for specialization -- because you need to advance knowledge -- or an argument for the person or program that brings that knowledge together, assimilating it.

Kurzweil: Increasingly that’s in the entrepreneurial field, where to actually achieve something of value, you have to be able to combine different fields. Search engines had to marry library science with databases and intelligent search algorithms and so you’ve got mathematicians and linguists working together. Increasingly true of any important practical project.

FC: What would you like to be doing in 100 years?

Kurzweil: I do have a goal of being a successful 25-year-old female rock singer.

FC: How long have you had this goal?

Kurzweil: Awhile. I did a decent job at TED 2001. You can see the results.

FC: Was it a pre-existing goal?

Kurzweil: Yeah, I particularly like female singers. I realized it would be fun to be one. Of course, I always wanted to be with one, but to be one was also kind of cool. And I actually do hope to return to that goal. It’s got nothing to do with gender confusion. It has to do with the discovery that we do have different people inside us that we’d like to be. I really enjoy innovating; I get captivated with ideas. I remember at age 5 -- it wasn’t an idle fantasy, I was absolutely convinced I would be an inventor. As I grew a little older, 8, 9, I had all these different invention projects. I read the Tom Swift novels where the whole message was no matter what problem you got into there was some idea -- and you could find it -- that would overcome these seemingly overwhelming problems. And I continue to have lots of ideas. I do end up committing to some of them and when I commit to a project I really do see it through -- it may take awhile. But I’ve got a lot of other ideas I’d like to pursue. So I do see myself 10 year from now, 30 years from now, 100 years from now continuing to be immersed in the world of ideas and trying to make ideas real. It takes a lot of work and commitment and passion, but it is my passion. What’s exciting for an inventor is to actually see ideas come into the world and affect people’s lives. I call it the link between dry formulas on a blackboard and impacting people’s lives. That’s not the only way to be; a theoretical scientist is excited just by the idea. But what turns an inventor on is to actually have the idea get out into the world and impact people. So when people send me albums they wouldn’t have been able to create without the type of synthesis that we pioneered or I get letters from blind students who use our reading technology in education, that’s thrilling. It shows the power of ideas. So I see myself continuing in that path.

FC: You’re almost the anti-specialist. You’re envisioning an existence where you’re capable of integrating different fields.

Kurzweil: That’s true, but I’m also very committed to my main interest, mathematics and pattern recognition. I’m impressed with the power of mathematics to impact the world. You can have a set of mathematical formulas that can actually make predictions in the stock market or understand human speech or understand patterns in biological processes and overcome health problems. And at the core of that is mathematics and pattern recognition. I do think that most of our intelligence is based on pattern recognition. Human thinking is actually not very good at logical and analytical thinking. We are very good at recognizing patterns.

FC: Storage formats: Is there a solution?

Kurzweil: I’ve actually thought about that. I think it’s a fundamental philosophical issue. I don’t think there is a solution. Other than the insight that information will survive if we care about it. I have files that I have nursed along through different formats that are still alive because I care about them and I manage them. I also have some old files that I probably won’t be able to retrieve because I haven’t kept them up to date. To the extent that information will encompass more and more of our lives, ultimately our whole personality and intelligence can be seen and recorded as information this becomes a very important insight. Our whole survival will continue if we care about ourselves. I don’t see a technological solution. I’ve been looking for one because I actually want to create a database of all my files. I have hundreds of boxes of paper records. My father was similar; he has all of his letters and college papers and Ph.D. theses. I have 50 boxes of my father’s papers. And I want to scan it all in. But then, if I scan it all in and have this big database, what format can I possibly put this in that it would still be viable in 50 years from now? And there is no such format.