Microsoft Word Kurzweil, Ray The Singularity Is Near doc

The Inevitability of a Transformed Future.
The diverse GNR technologies are progressing on many fronts. The full 
realization of GNR will result from hundreds of small steps forward, each benign in itself. For G we have already 
passed the threshold of having the means to create designer pathogens. Advances in biotechnology will continue to 
accelerate, fueled by the compelling ethical and economic benefits that will result from mastering the information 
processes underlying biology. 
Nanotechnology is the inevitable end result of the ongoing miniaturization of technology of all kinds. The key 
features for a wide range of applications, including electronics, mechanics, energy, and medicine, are shrinking at the 
rate of a factor of about four per linear dimension per decade. Moreover, there is exponential growth in research 
seeking to understand nanotechnology and its applications. (See the graphs on nanotechnology research studies and 
patents on pp. 83 and 84.) 
Similarly, our efforts to reverse engineer the human brain are motivated by diverse anticipated benefits, including 
understanding and reversing cognitive diseases and decline. The tools for peering into the brain are showing 
exponential gains in spatial and temporal resolution, and we've demonstrated the ability to translate data from brain 
scans and studies into working models and simulations. 
Insights from the brain reverse-engineering effort, overall research in developing AI algorithms, and ongoing 
exponential gains in computing platforms make strong AI (AI at human levels and beyond) inevitable. Once AI 
achieves human levels, it will necessarily soar past it because it will combine the strengths of human intelligence with 
the speed, memory capacity, and knowledge sharing that nonbiological intelligence already exhibits. Unlike biological 
intelligence, nonbiological intelligence will also benefit from ongoing exponential gains in scale, capacity, and price-
performance.