“Ray Kurzweil.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.
(p. 12) As a futurist, you are famous for making predictions of when technological innovations will actually occur. Are you willing to predict the year you will die?
My plan is to stick around. We’ll get to a point about 15 years from now where we’re adding more than a year every year to your life expectancy.To clarify, you’re predicting your immortality.
The problem is I can’t get on the phone with you in the future and say, “Well, I’ve done it, I have lived forever,” because it’s never forever.
. . .
You’ve said that if you woke up one day with a terminal disease, you’d be forced to invent a cure. Were you being serious?
I absolutely would try. I’m working now on a cancer project with some scientists at M.I.T., and if I develop cancer, I do have some ideas of what I would do.
I imagine a lot of people would hear that and say, Ray, if you think you’re capable of curing yourself, why don’t you go ahead and start curing others?
Well, I mean, I do have to pick my priorities. Nobody can do everything. What we spend our time on is probably the most important decision we make. I don’t know if you’re aware, but I’m joining Google as director of engineering.
For the full interview, see:
Andrew Goldman, Interviewer. “TALK; The Life Robotic; The Futurist Ray Kurzweil Says We’re Going to Live Forever. Really.” The New York Times Magazine (Sun., January 27, 2013): 12.
(Note: ellipsis added; bold in original, indicating interviewer questions.)
(Note: the online version of the interview has the date January 25, 2013, and has the title “TALK; Ray Kurzweil Says We’re Going to Live Forever.”)