Prophets of Technology: The OG influencers

Summary

TED Radio Hour: Prophets of Technology - The OG Influencers

Host: Manoush Zomorodi
Episode Release Date: July 11, 2025

In this compelling episode of the TED Radio Hour, host Manoush Zomorodi delves into the minds of two seminal figures in the realm of technology and culture: Ray Kurzweil and Stewart Brand. These visionaries have not only predicted but also actively shaped the digital landscape we navigate today. Through their insights, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the exponential growth of technology, the impending singularity, and the cultural shifts that have underpinned Silicon Valley's evolution.

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Ray Kurzweil: The Futurist and Inventor

Early Fascination with Computers and AI

Ray Kurzweil, at the age of 12 or 13, began programming on one of the scarce IBM 1620 computers in New York City. His early exposure laid the groundwork for his lifelong engagement with artificial intelligence (AI).

“I was programming in IBM 1620... It was in Spanish Harlem.”
[03:47] Ray Kurzweil

At 14, Kurzweil met Marvin Minsky, a pivotal moment that sparked a 50-year mentorship and deepened his commitment to AI.

“It started a 50-year relationship of him being my mentor.”
[04:24] Ray Kurzweil

Innovations and Inventions

Kurzweil's entrepreneurial spirit led him to create tools that bridged technology and human needs. Notable inventions include:

• College Matching Algorithm: An early AI application to help high school students find suitable colleges.

  “It gave you like 12 or 14 different schools that you should look into, but it actually was quite accurate.”
  [04:59] Ray Kurzweil

• Reading Machine (1976): This device enabled blind individuals to read by scanning text and converting it into speech. A landmark demonstration on CBS Evening News featured musician Stevie Wonder, who became a long-term collaborator.

  “Stevie Wonder happened to tune in and decided he wanted the device.”
  [06:19] Ray Kurzweil

• Kurzweil 250 Synthesizer (1984): Revolutionized music production by accurately emulating real instruments, garnering awe for its realistic sound.

  “At the time they didn't. And this was quite a revelation at that time.”
  [07:20] Ray Kurzweil

Law of Accelerating Returns

Kurzweil introduced his "Law of Accelerating Returns," an extension of Moore's Law, illustrating the exponential growth of computational power.

“Each year is about the same. It multiplies, basically doubles the amount of computation you could do in each year.”
[08:07] Ray Kurzweil

This principle underscores the rapid advancements in AI, DNA sequencing, and data storage, predicting that technology will build upon itself at an ever-increasing pace.

Predictions on AGI and the Singularity

Kurzweil forecasts the arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) by 2029, where machines achieve human-level intelligence and beyond.

“In 1999, Ray predicted that artificial general intelligence... would arrive by the year 2029.”
[16:49] Minouche Zomorodi

He elaborates on the concept of the singularity—a point where AI surpasses human intelligence, leading to transformative changes in human existence.

“We're going to be able to think of things and we're not going to be true. Whether it came from our biological intelligence or our computational intelligence, it's all going to be the same thing.”
[18:38] Ray Kurzweil

Longevity Escape Velocity

Kurzweil introduces the idea of "Longevity Escape Velocity," where medical advancements outpace the aging process, effectively allowing humans to extend their lifespans indefinitely.

“By 2029 and 2035, you're going to get back... so you'll actually get back more than a year and you'll go backwards in time.”
[22:57] Ray Kurzweil

He discusses the integration of AI in healthcare, such as the development of an artificial pancreas, highlighting his personal triumphs over diabetes and heart disease.

Personal Reflections and Impact

Kurzweil shares his interactions with Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, emphasizing differing perspectives on technological optimism and mortality.

“He actually had a plan to kill himself because he didn't want to be going downhill in his 90s.”
[25:50] Ray Kurzweil

Despite skepticism from peers, Kurzweil remains steadfast in his belief that technological advancements will overcome the limitations of human biology.

“I couldn't convince him of that.”
[26:52] Ray Kurzweil

Quotes and Insights

• On Merging Intelligence:

  “People talk about human intelligence and then computer intelligence as if they're two different things. But we're actually going to merge.”
  [02:40] Ray Kurzweil

• On Accelerating Progress:

  “Most of the project was done in the last few years.”
  [10:56] Ray Kurzweil

• On the Future's Promise and Peril:

  “The future is not without peril. It's both promise and peril, and it's up to people to use that.”
  [30:24] Ray Kurzweil

---

Stewart Brand: Shaping Culture and Technology

Trips Festival and the Hippie Movement

Stewart Brand, a central figure in the counterculture of the 1960s, co-organized the iconic Trips Festival with Ken Kesey. This event is often cited as the genesis of the hippie movement, fostering a culture of experimentation and alternative thinking.

“The kind of thing we see at Burning Man ever since... is a direct result of people discovering how much fun you can have if you just threw yourself completely into being part of the performance.”
[37:31] Stewart Brand

Whole Earth Catalog: Tools for a New Age

Brand's creation, the Whole Earth Catalog, emerged as a beacon for the counterculture, providing resources and tools that empowered individuals to innovate and live sustainably.

“The Whole Earth Catalog was a very tightly edited collection of tools and ideas... something you can make your own decision.”
[41:55] Stewart Brand

Steve Jobs famously lauded the catalog as a precursor to Google, highlighting its enduring influence.

“Stay hungry, stay foolish. It was their farewell message as they signed off.”
[43:11] Unknown Speaker

Influence on Silicon Valley and Technology

In the early 1970s, Brand shifted his focus to technology, reporting on groundbreaking developments at Xerox PARC and the nascent stages of the ARPANET, the foundation of the modern Internet. His vision of personal computing aligned with Silicon Valley's trajectory toward democratizing technology.

“Ready or not, Computers are coming to the people.”
[45:08] Stewart Brand

He played a pivotal role in organizing the Hackers Conference in 1984, a seminal event that brought together leading engineers and programmers, catalyzing the computer revolution.

“Once computers became personal, they flipped from being seen as these machines of oppression to machines of liberation.”
[46:33] Stewart Brand

Long Now Foundation and the 10,000-Year Clock

Brand founded the Long Now Foundation to encourage long-term thinking, countering humanity's tendency towards short-termism. The foundation's signature project, the 10,000-Year Clock, embodies this philosophy by serving as a monumental symbol of enduring progress and sustainability.

“It's a great big mechanism... drives a genuine clock to keep very good time.”
[48:21] Stewart Brand

Despite skepticism, Brand emphasizes the importance of such projects in fostering a mindset that prioritizes the future's longevity.

Reflections on Legacy and Future

When contemplating his legacy, Brand remains humble, emphasizing the collective journey of innovation and cultural evolution.

“It's hard to know. You know, legacies have their own life.”
[51:51] Stewart Brand

He envisions a future where technology continues to empower individuals, balancing the benefits and challenges it presents.

Quotes and Insights

• On Creativity and Performance:

  “Dancing was just go out in the middle of the floor and carry on.”
  [37:31] Stewart Brand

• On Personal Computing:

  “Robots wandering around the laboratory... Computers are coming to the people.”
  [45:08] Stewart Brand

• On Long-Term Thinking:

  “Humanity has revealed itself into a pathologically short attention span... it's an extreme hazard.”
  [46:55] Stewart Brand

---

Conclusion

In this episode of the TED Radio Hour, Manoush Zomorodi engages with Ray Kurzweil and Stewart Brand to explore the intersection of technology, culture, and the future. Kurzweil's insights into AI and longevity, coupled with Brand's influence on counterculture and long-term thinking, offer listeners a profound understanding of the forces shaping our world. As technology continues to advance at an unprecedented rate, the perspectives of these "Prophets of Technology" underscore the importance of visionary thinking in navigating the complexities of the digital age.

---

Notable Quote Highlights:

• Ray Kurzweil on Merging Intelligence:

  “We're going to merge... intelligence, but it's going to be so fantastic change in our ability to deal with the world.”
  [18:38] Ray Kurzweil

• Stewart Brand on Liberation through Technology:

  “They flipped from being seen as these machines of oppression to machines of liberation.”
  [46:33] Stewart Brand

• Ray Kurzweil on the Singularity:

  “We're going to be able to think of things and we're not going to be true... it's all going to be the same thing.”
  [18:38] Ray Kurzweil

• Stewart Brand on Legacy:

  “It's hard to know... legacies have their own life.”
  [51:51] Stewart Brand

---

For more insights from these technology visionaries, tune into the next episodes of the TED Radio Hour’s "Prophets of Technology" series.

Transcript

[Minouche Zomorodi]

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[Minouche Zomorodi]

Today, this is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED talks.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Our job now is to dream big.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Delivered at TED conferences to bring about.

[NPR Sponsor]

The future we want to see around.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

The world to understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you.

[Stewart Brand]

You just don't know what you're gonna find challenge you.

[Ray Kurzweil]

We truly have to ask ourselves like why is it noteworthy and even change you?

[Minouche Zomorodi]

I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading from TED and npr. I'm Minouche Zamorodi. And behind every new device or innovation the that seems to pop up out of nowhere. At the time people really thought we were crazy are decades of research, countless hours of computation and vigorous debates. But if we got the technology right and it was over how an invention may completely change what it means to be human. There is no such thing as just a tool, for better or worse. And it's making and shaping and changing us. And now as AI is becoming part of every aspect of our lives, it just paves the way for future applications of who are some of the people behind this huge inflection point?

[Ray Kurzweil]

That's the world that we're moving into.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

What makes their brains tick, There is.

[Stewart Brand]

A kind of a hunger and foolishness.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

To it and what keeps them up at night. And that's the part that I fear that what it means to be human, what it means to flourish as a human may suddenly not be our own. Today, the the first in our three part series with the prophets of technology, the inventors and scientists who predicted the digital world we live in today and who have been part of crafting it, what they've gotten right and wrong and where they think we're headed next.

[Ray Kurzweil]

People talk about human intelligence and then computer intelligence as if they're two different things. But we're actually going to merge.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

We're kicking off part one with the futuristic Ray Kurzweil.

[Ray Kurzweil]

I'm an inventor foremost. Got into futurism really as a thing that enables me to create inventions.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Today at 77, Ray is best known for his prediction that technology will eventually be able to extend our lives indefinitely. Yes, avoid dying. That idea is built on a lifetime of invention. He has spent over six decades developing groundbreaking tools that paved the way for the technology we use use today. He was one of the first people to forecast how AI would turbocharge human potential. To understand his theories about the accelerating pace of technological change and what it might accomplish, we need to rewind to the early 1960s when Ray was a teenager just trying to get access to a computer.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Well, at age 12 or 13, I was programming computers. People were not familiar with computers, they had not heard of them. But I was programming in IBM 1620. There was only one of 12 computers in all of New York City. It was in Spanish Harlem. I had the midnight to 8am shift. So you had to wander around Spanish Harlem, which was not the best thing to do as a young person in the middle of the night.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

At age 14, Ray heard about something called artificial intelligence that was being developed by an MIT computer scientist named Marvin Minsky.

[Ray Kurzweil]

So I went to actually go meet Marvin Minsky. I wrote him a letter, he said, come on by, why don't you come to mit? Which I then did. And I thought he might spend half an hour with me, spent all day with me up in Boston. And it started a 50 year relationship of him being my mentor. So that was really the beginning of my involvement with computers and artificial intelligence. So this was about 63 years ago.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Ray went on to study at MIT where he also started his first company using a computer to help high school students evaluate colleges and find a good match.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Yeah, that was actually an example of artificial intelligence at that time. And this was quite early and it worked quite well. It didn't tell you where to go. It gave you like 12 or 14 different schools that you should look into, but it actually was quite accurate.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

A decade later, in 1976, he built a device called the Reading Machine which helped blind people read by scanning text and turning it into speech.

[Stewart Brand]

In 1974, computer programs that could recognize printed letters.

[Ray Kurzweil]

And that was the first example of OCR Omnifont character recognition, a flatbed scanner which didn't exist at the time. And we also created text to speech.

[Stewart Brand]

Synthesis program that could recognize any style.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Of print you'd put a book on it and would read it out loud. People didn't expect that at that time. Actually, I remember the date. January 13, 1976. This is the CBS Evening News because Walter Cronkite, at the end of each program he would say, and that's the way it was. Friday, March 20, he would say the date. And for the very first time, he actually didn't read it himself. He had the reading machine read it Today show, then asked me to come on, demonstrate the program.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Musician Stevie Wonder happened to tune in and decided he wanted the device.

[Ray Kurzweil]

He showed up, came by taxi, he wanted to pay us for the machine. We didn't accept payment and he went away with the reading machine. And that began really what is now a 50 year relationship with him.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Together, Stevie Wonder and Ray started another company, Kurzweil Music.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Okay, here I am with my new synthesizer. And this is great. In 1984 we had the Kurzweil 250, which could actually play any type of instruments. Piano, for example, which is the most difficult one to recreate. It was really the first synthesizer that sounded like a real piano or a real orchestral instrument.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

There's a video that I watched where you and a musician are demonstrating it. And to someone who has never heard this, it was like mind blowing. Do you remember that?

[Ray Kurzweil]

Yeah, I remember that. And people still have that kind of reaction. Although synthesizers now sound like pianos. But at the time they didn't. And this was quite a revelation at that time.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Ray's inventions track the rise of modern computing. They're also the basis of some of his most provocative theories. So all of these inventions that we've sort of run through, there's many, many more. But they all led you to an idea that you call Ray's Law of Accelerating returns. You have said this chart, which tracks how many calculations a computer can do per dollar, is your most important chart. Can you explain?

[Ray Kurzweil]

Yeah. Try to describe this chart. It shows all of the computers we've had. The very first computer that we created was in 1939. It was done by a German Zuse. And it could produce 0.000007 calculations per second per constant dollar. And there's basically a straight line from 1939 to the present. It starts with electromechanical relays, then goes to vacuum tubes and goes to transistors, then goes to integrated circuits, then goes to integrated circuits devoted to AI. In 2024, we have the Nvidia B200 chip, does half a trillion calculations per second per dollar. There's a 75 quadrillion fold increase. Quadrillion means thousand trillion fold increase in 86 years. But what's really quite remarkable is the increment. Each year is about the same. It multiplies, basically doubles the amount of computation you could do in each year. That's why we're seeing AI being so capable today. And that's the basis on which I made these predictions.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

I think many people have heard of Moore's Law. This is the idea that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles about every two years, which leads to more processing power.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Right, but that's only, that only deals with integrated circuits.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Right, so your law applies to everything.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Yeah, right.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So you gave a ted talk in 2005 where you first sort of shared your law of accelerating returns, and you basically said, yes, technology builds upon itself. Faster technology begets faster technology and so on, leading to all kinds of acceleration in areas like DNA sequencing and storing data and more powerful processing.

[Unknown Speaker]

And a lot of people, when they think about the future, think about it linearly. They think they're going to continue to develop a problem or address a problem using today's tools, at today's pace of progress, and fail to take into consideration this exponential growth. The genome project was a controversial project in 1990. We had our best PhD students, our most advanced equipment around the world. We got 1/10,000 of the project done. So how are we going to get this done in 15 years? And 10 years into the project, the skeptics were still going strong. Says you're two thirds through this project and you've managed to only sequence a very tiny percentage of the whole genome. But it's the nature of exponential growth that once it reaches the knee of the curve, it explodes. Most of the project was done in.

[Ray Kurzweil]

The last few years of the project.

[Unknown Speaker]

It took us 15 years to sequence HIV. We sequenced SARS in 31 days. We are gaining the potential to overcome these problems. The actual paradigm shift rate, the rate of adopting new ideas is doubling every decade according to our models.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So here we are. It's the 20 years later. Exactly. Is there anything that you said back then that you sort of tweaked or has the graph just gone on to prove your point exactly?

[Ray Kurzweil]

Well, the graph has accelerated exponentially and that has not stopped. I guess one thing where I was perhaps incorrect is the amount of capability that would be required to initiate a change. For example, self driving cars.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So why you said that we'd have self driving cars by 2009, what did you get wrong?

[Ray Kurzweil]

So we expected to be much more capable in order to put it into being. It doesn't have to just be better than humans. It has to be a lot better for us to rely on it. So that wasn't really clear to me.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So the social norms have to change in addition to the technological capability in order for your predictions to come true?

[Ray Kurzweil]

Yeah, I mean, we basically accept humans having problems and causing accidents and deaths and so on. And we don't expect that of computers. We expect them to be almost perfect.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

In 1999, you predicted that by 2009 we would have portable computers and facial recognition software. That was correct. You also thought we would be using virtual reality all the time, everywhere. But that one is not correct. Do you think that's because of the tech or because people just don't want it?

[Ray Kurzweil]

I don't think I predicted that we'd use it all the time, but I went through all the predictions I made in 1999, about 2009, about 147 different predictions figured we would need several trillion fold computations per second to emulate the human mind. And I predicted that that would actually happen in the late 2000s, which is what's happening now.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

In a minute. More with futurist Ray Kurzweil. How AI is getting closer to surpassing the human mind and why Ray thinks AI is vastly going to extend his lifespan.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Well, my goal is not to die at all.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

You're listening to the TED Radio Hour's special series with the Profits of Technology. I'm Minouche Zumarodi. We'll be right back. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Raise a glass today and you'll taste more than just just beer. You'll taste a trailblazing spirit. You'll taste pure ingredients, sustainable brewing and a commitment to community. And you'll taste a world of flavor. From the legendary pale ale to the citrusy and smooth hazy little thing. It's flavor that takes time so you can make the most of yours. See for yourself where fine beer is sold. Sierra Nevada Taste what matters. Please drink responsibly.

[Ray Kurzweil]

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[Minouche Zomorodi]

It'S the TED Radio Hour from npr. I'm Manoush Zomorodi and this is part one of our special series, the Profits of Technology. We're talking to the inventors and scientists who predicted and shaped the digital world we live in today and asking them where they think we're headed next. So now more with inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. In 1999, Ray predicted that artificial general intelligence, that's human levels of intelligence in machines, would arrive by the year 2029, a forecast that is starting to seem less and less crazy. A warning. This next part of our conversation includes a discussion about assisted suicide. Let's go to artificial general intelligence then. You know, Ray, I have to say, before ChatGPT came out, I would have been like, ha ha, funny. That's never gonna happen. But even just playing around with various AI on my laptop at home, I am shocked at how insightful they can be. So are you actually early with your AGI prediction? It's 2025 while we're talking.

[Ray Kurzweil]

No, I'm still saying 2029, but AGI is really quite remarkable. And it's not just human level. It's really an ability to be at basically the best of somebody that's got a PhD in that field and being able to do that in every field together and blending all these skills together and we're not quite there yet, but it is quite promising. For example, a person I know was asked to compare two books. Took her four days to read the two books and write something and then review it. And then she decided, okay, she's going to ask one of the major large language models to do the same thing. It took 40 seconds and she felt it was better than what she had written. And this is today.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So what needs to be solved then in the next few years for your prediction to be correct?

[Ray Kurzweil]

It can't do everything that people who have a PhD in that subject can do. Certain types of math skills and other things. It needs to be more Perfect at, but it's getting there. 2029 is actually considered somewhat conservative today. People are thinking that's going to happen, like by 2027, but I'm sticking with 2029.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So this brings us to the word you are really famous for the singularity. So artificial general intelligence is a machine with human like abilities. But you've also famously predicted, this is a couple decades ago, that we will get to a point when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and the speed of technology gets so fast that humans won't be able to understand it or even control it. Did I explain that correctly?

[Ray Kurzweil]

Well, there's one way in which my prediction is somewhat different than other people. People talk about human intelligence and then computer intelligence as if they're two different things. I'm holding in my hand my phone, and people consider that somewhat different than yourself. And if I actually get something, information from my phone, that's a bit different than getting it from my own mind. But we're actually going to merge. I could try to think of a name of an actress, and it just appears in my mind and I'm not sure where it came from, but it's there. We're going to be able to think of things and we're not going to be true. Whether it came from our biological intelligence or our computational intelligence, it's all going to be the same thing. And that's what's going to happen in the2030s. In physics, a singularity is something where the gravity is so great that you can't actually tell what's going on inside it. Like a black hole. This is. We're talking about intelligence, but it's going to be so fantastic change in our ability to deal with the world that we're also calling it a singularity because we can't really tell what's going to happen. When we get to the2030s, nanobots will connect our brains to the cloud just the way your phone does. It'll expand intelligence a million fold. By 2045, that is the singularity. We will be funnier, sexier, smarter, more creative, free from biological limitations. We'll be able to choose our appearance. We'll be able to do things we can't do today, like visualize objects in 11 dimensions. We can speak all languages. We'll be able to expand consciousness in ways we can barely imagine.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Part of me is extremely intrigued by this. I love the idea of my brain being enhanced so I can dial up my focus or be able to do extraordinary calculations just in my head right.

[Ray Kurzweil]

And you can do that today? Somewhat. I mean, you actually get ideas from your phone. You actually forget whether you got it from your phone or your own mind.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

True, but I can trace it back to the source, whereas.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Yeah, you can.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

This makes me nervous not knowing who's actually presenting me with these ideas in my head.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Right. But everybody, like I go to presentations, everybody has a cell phone and they're all getting information from the cell phone. And it's really, it's not separate and it's getting more intelligent all the time. And people already using virtual reality, they're getting information that's coming from their eyes. It's not really clear whether it's coming from their eyes or from their brain. It's merging and it's going to merge even more in the future.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Yeah. Which brings me to your latest TED talk. So on the TED stage in 2024, you introduced a new concept, one that you think will help people live potentially forever. Let's talk through this concept. You call it longevity escape velocity.

[Ray Kurzweil]

And by the end of this decade, as we go into the2030s, we're going to achieve a new milestone. It's called longevity escape velocity. Right now you go through a year and you use up a year of your longevity. However, scientific progress is also progressing, which is actually bringing us back. It's giving us cures for diseases, new forms of treatments. Right now you're getting back about four months. So you lose a year, you get back four months, or you're losing eight months. However, the scientific progress is on an exponential. It's going to get faster and faster as we get to the early2030s. I'd say between 2029 and 2035, depending on how diligent you are, you're going to get back. So you lose a year, you get back a year. As we actually go past that point, you'll actually get back more than a year and you'll go backwards in time, which would be cool.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Right now our body ages just as the human body always has. But you predict that in a decade or less, we'll actually have treatments that make our bodies younger than the age we are. To the point that every 80 year old can have a 30 year old's body and mind. How will this happen?

[Ray Kurzweil]

Well, not exactly, but right now you go through a year and you use up one year of your life. However, scientific discovery is creating new cures for diseases, new ways of treating things, and you're actually getting back, if you're diligent about four months from scientific discovery. So you're only really aging eight months out of the year because you're getting back four months if you're diligent and taking advantage of the latest scientific discoveries. For example, I had two problems, diabetes and heart disease, which I've actually overcome. Today I have an artificial pancreas, just like a real pancreas. It's actually external, but it actually detects my glucose, determines the amount of insulin that I should have, and it works just like a real pancreas.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

But this sounds like life extension. Rather than turning back time, what is going to be the sort of key technology that you think sort of suspends aging?

[Ray Kurzweil]

Well, the whole way in which we come up with medications is going to change. For example, Moderna, when they tried to develop a COVID vaccine, they considered all the different possibilities and they did that in two days using AI and came up with the optimal sequence. Whereas it used to take years to do that kind of thing. Then they had to go through human testing. But we're actually going to be able to eliminate human testing and replace it with simulating biology in the computer. The estimate right now by people who are working on this is about five years to be able to eliminate human testing and replace it with simulated testing. So we'll be able to actually create medications for diseases that will take days rather than years. And this will be in the2030s. I don't guarantee immortality. I'm talking about longevity, escape velocity, where we can keep going without getting older. We won't be aging in the same way that we are today.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Not everyone believes you. You have an amazing story about your relationship with the late Nobel Prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman. I understand you talked about these predictions to him before he ended up taking his own life at the age of 90.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Yeah, he was a Nobel Prize winner in economics, and I met with him every few months, had lunch with him in New York, and he was 90. But he would actually walk from his apartment several blocks to where we were meeting. He seemed very healthy. And we got into a big debate. I was saying, we're gonna be able to come up with cures for diseases much more quickly. And he didn't believe it. No, it takes 10 years, by the time you have an idea before it can actually be a cure. It takes 10 years. I said, well, it's taken 10 years in the past, it's not going to take 10 years in the future. And he didn't believe that, even though he understood what my predictions were about. And he actually had a plan to kill himself because he didn't want to be going downhill in his 90s.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

And he did it.

[Ray Kurzweil]

And he did it. He actually went to Switzerland and killed himself. And he had nothing wrong with him.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So you think he made a mistake?

[Ray Kurzweil]

Absolutely. He had this idea about what human beings were going to be. And this is probably true in the past, it was not true in the future. But I couldn't convince him of that.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

You have called dying tragic in the past. You've said that people try to trick themselves into accepting it. It sounds like that idea has not changed for you.

[Ray Kurzweil]

I mean, a lot of human history is about this. People generally get sick and die and they very often have a very messy death and they leave lots of their intelligence behind them. Loss of love, loss of knowledge is what death is about. And people have actually rationalized death as being a good thing because there's nothing they could do about it. But now it's happening quickly enough that we can actually get a handle on it and be able to overcome it largely. And that's what I've been talking about.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Realistically speaking, based on what you know about technology and your own health, how much longer do you think you could live for, provided there was no accident or something out of the blue?

[Ray Kurzweil]

Well, my goal is not to die at all. That's the goal. Now. We can't guarantee immortality. And I don't think about immortality. I'm thinking about tomorrow is actually a good day. I'd like to live tomorrow. And tomorrow I think I'll want to live till the next day. Being able to do that so far. My father died at 58. I'm 77.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

You've already escaped death.

[Ray Kurzweil]

According to my family, yes. And I feel very good. And I see that technology is able to create new capabilities that we didn't even have last year. And it's happening very, very quickly. It's not something that's going to happen over the next 50 years, is happening over the next one year, two years.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So it's, it's, it's a really. I'm not sure we're prepared in any way, or maybe if we can even can prepare for it. How much this accelerating technology forces us to change how we use our brain. Like, for example, if I'm a great writer, but AI is an even better writer, what is my value? Who am I? You know, what am I good for? These are big existential questions.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Well, we're not going to be as concerned about whether it comes from you or whether it comes from ChatGPT. We're not going to be able to tell whether it's coming from a large language model that's part of us or our own brain. And we'll be proud of what we're able to create. And at least for me, that's what gives me meaning.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

It's funny. Ray, I wanted to tell you that while I was preparing for this interview, Google AI warned me. They said it is important to note that Ray Kurzweil is a futurist and inventor and his predictions are intended to be thought provoking and optimistic. While his views have been influential and have generated excitement, it's crucial to critically assess them, acknowledge the potential challenges and limitations. Considering you work, have worked with Google as a technologist for decades, what do you think about that warning?

[Ray Kurzweil]

Well, I think it's important to understand that the future is not without peril. It's both promise and peril, and it's up to people to use that. We don't know what's going to happen in the future and I don't know either. So far it's worked out pretty well. We've had problems in the past that we've overcome. I mean, remember 80 years ago we had a war that caused 100 million people to die in Europe and Asia and we thought that that would continue. That has not continued. We've actually gotten a lot better. You're aware of what AI can do, but a lot of people are not. And the world's going to be quite different and it's changing very rapidly. What AI can do is different than it was three months ago. For example, I asked a large language mod last week to understand humor and it actually was quite funny. I thought maybe it might be accidentally funny, so I asked it again and it was very, very funny, over and over again. That was not true a year ago. So it's actually capable of doing things that it couldn't do a year ago. And people on it actually used to change quite that rapidly. So things will be different. I think they'll be positive. But there are acute dangers that we need to be aware of because the world we live in already is influenced greatly by AI and it's going to be even more so in the future. And we really need to train people to be part of the world that we're living in.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

That was inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. His latest book is called the Singularity Is Nearer. You can see all of his talks and. And if you or someone you know is in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. So if Ray is one of the big brains behind tech inventions, our next prophet of technology has been the brain behind some of the biggest changes in our culture, often by sparking the counterculture of California and creating the scene that eventually morphed into Silicon Valley.

[Stewart Brand]

Hi Manish.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Hi Stuart. Thank you so much for doing us. You may never have heard of Stuart Brand, but he's been right next to even propelling some of the biggest names and movements of the last century, like with his Whole Earth catalog, which Steve Jobs once referred to as Google in paperback form.

[Unknown Speaker]

In paperback form, 35 years before Google came along, it was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Brand is 86 years old now and his never ending curiosity continues to this day.

[Stewart Brand]

There is a kind of a hunger and foolishness to it, it's appetite, it's willingness to be ridiculous on the way to something you think might be interesting.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

When we come back, my conversation with Stewart Brand, how his parties in the 60s helped ignite the hippie movement and Silicon Valley's leg of being open to wild ideas. I'm Anoush Zamorodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour's Profits of Technology series. Stick with us.

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[Minouche Zomorodi]

It's the TED Radio Hour from npr. I'm Anoush Zumarodi, and this is part one of our special series, the Profits of Tech. Talking to the people who predicted and propelled forward some of the biggest changes we have seen in society. And one name that inevitably comes up is Stewart brand. In 2022, I spent some time with Stewart talking about the roots of technology in San Francisco's counterculture scene in the 1960s and the magazine that he created, the Whole Earth Catalog. But it all started for him back in 1966, when Stewart and his friend Ken Kesey, the acclaimed author of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, threw a massive party called the Trips Festival, which some historians say marked the beginning of the hippie movement and a new way of thinking.

[Stewart Brand]

Various avant garde artists did their thing. A sculptor named Ron Boise, who made these enormous noisy sculptures that you would bang on and pluck at strings and make a sort of a group music. I mean, I grew up doing the damn foxtrot. And what I loved about the bohemian world is dancing was just go out in the middle of the floor and carry on. The kind of thing we see at Burning man ever since, for example, is a direct result of people discovering how much fun you can could have if you just threw yourself completely in to be part of the performance.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So it was a couple months after the Trips Festival that you took LSD on your own and zeroed in on a provocative question. Why haven't people seen a photo of the Earth from space nowadays that would maybe be turned into an online consistency conspiracy theory. But that's not what happened. What did happen? What did you do?

[Stewart Brand]

What was happening was I was reading and listening to Buckminster Fuller and he was focused on sort of world system thinking. And I was also a photographer, so I'm always thinking about what are the images that change people's minds? And I was on the rooftop of my place in San Francisco with probably a half dose, quarter dose of lsd, just watching the afternoon scintillate and pretended to myself that I could see that the buildings downtown, the tall buildings, were not exactly parallel, they diverged slightly because they were on the curved surface of the north. And then I imagined myself going to a higher and higher altitude and that curve would extend and then close all the way around on itself. And you would have San Francisco as seen from space at that point. This is 10 years since Sputnik and so it suddenly seemed very strange to me that both the Soviet Union and the United States could have taken serious photographs of the Earth from space and apparently hadn't done so. And I just thought, well, as soon as that photograph happens, everything's going to change. And a year or two later, that's exactly what happened.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

You made this big sign and you printed out a bunch of buttons that asked the question, why haven't we seen a photo of the Earth from space? And then you went around to different college campuses and just like handed them out. So I mean, what did people think? Did they think you were a crackpot? Or were they actually like, huh, this is kind of interesting. How did people respond to you?

[Stewart Brand]

I can't say why, it just seemed like the obvious thing to do. But I stood in these places where there were young people with open minds and also teachers, many of them involved in astrophysics and space program and so on. The ones who were interested would come up and say, what's going on? And I'd say, well, you know, what do you think it'll be like when people really look in the big mirror? So it became just a way to have public discussion.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So not too long after, NASA actually did take a picture of the Earth from a satellite and share it. And it was the first time the public saw a picture of the whole Earth. What impact did it have on people?

[Stewart Brand]

So I think the photograph that really got people was the Earthrise photograph from Apollo 8. Going around the Moon and recording the lunar surface in the foreground and the Earth in the background. And the contrast between the dead, boring looking, gray, brown planet in the foreground, the Moon, with this vivid, scintillating, bright blue, living, but distant and kind of small in the enormity of black space. That contrast is what got people dead planet, live planet, and we're on the live one. And then that raises question. Now that we've seen that, what does that mean? What do we do with that?

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So we're talking about the late 60s here. And that's really when a sort of new consciousness about the environment, this understanding that we are shepherds of the Earth. You put a picture of the planet on the COVID of a magazine that you started publishing called the Whole Earth Catalog. It became a cult read and it made you pretty famous in the US you were on the late night talk shows. But for those who are not familiar with it, what was the Whole Earth catalog? What was it in it?

[Stewart Brand]

The Whole Earth Catalog was a very tightly edited collection of tools and ideas. So the important subtitle of the Whole Earth Catalog was Access to Tools. We didn't sell the things in the catalog. It was just a catalog of stuff that we were pointing at. And it was trying to give you enough of a sample that you can make your own decision, something or other. Jug and bottle cutter was a device that you could put in any bottle and turn it into a glass. We didn't call it ecological yet, but a whole lot of being a hippie was living as cheap as possible. And so all the creativity went into learning how to dumpster dive and how to find roadkill that was fresh enough you could cook it and eat it or make a hat out of it or something.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Okay, so in 2005, many years later, Steve Jobs gave a commencement address at Stanford University, where he talked about how inspired he was by the catalog when he was younger, especially by the way it ended. Let's listen.

[Unknown Speaker]

Stewart and his team put out several issues of the Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words, Stay hungry, stay foolish. It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay hungry, stay foolish. And I have always wished that for myself.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Stay hungry, stay foolish. Words for some to live by. But, Stuart, you stopped publishing the Whole Earth Catalog regularly in the middle of the 70s, and then you get introduced to another subculture in California. At that point, it definitely wasn't mainstream yet. The world of computers and hackers, it.

[Stewart Brand]

Had been coming for a long time, in the sense that in 62, I happened to see way later called them hackers. Young programmers at the computation center at Stanford where I was getting a tour. So 10 years later, when I stopped the catalog, the guy who ran Rolling Stone magazine, Jan Wenner, invited me to write something for them. And I thought, great, I get to be a journalist. And he said, what do you want to write about? And I said, well, actually, I think something is going on with computers. And I wound up reporting on things going on at Xerox PARC and at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, where the ARPANET was just starting to happen, what became the Internet later on and robotics was starting to happen. So there were robots wandering around the laboratory, and I just reported on all of that in 72. The opening line was, ready or not, Computers are coming to the people.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

I mean, you were one of the first people who even used the phrase personal computer publicly, that's true.

[Stewart Brand]

I did that in a follow up version of that article.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

So you saw the direction that computers were going. You saw before a lot of people did that this was going to completely change the world. In 1984 you threw yet another legendary event, the Hackers Conference where you brought together all these incredible minds, I mean the top engineers and programmers, they were all there. And there are people who say that if in the 70s things were kind of bubbling along when it came to tech, this event really kicked off the.

[Ray Kurzweil]

Computer revolution, ever expanding library with millions of people online simultaneously. They will all be able to publish simultaneously, add things, annotate, make links, and we hope live in a freer environment that we live in now. Now there's a big political issues here.

[Stewart Brand]

Once computers became personal, they flipped from being seen as these machines of oppression to machines of liberation. Because the individual could grab it and then run with it toward whatever horizon they thought most interesting. And they were not only using it, they were programming it. And so again, sort of like the thrift festival that everybody is a performer with personal computers, everybody's a creator.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

A few years after immersing yourself in computers, you pivoted yet again, starting another organization called the Long Now. And basically this is a non profit dedicated to getting people to think more long term about the future. Why did you think people needed this, Stuart?

[Stewart Brand]

Well, my sort of opening line of humanity has revved itself into a pathologically short attention span and that thanks to science, we know a whole lot more about the long term past and have a lot more knowledge about the systems that are going to be functioning into the long term future than we've ever had before. And so to not act on that knowledge is at best a waste and at worst an extreme hazard.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Yeah, and the sort of signature project of the Long now foundation is this massive clock. A clock that's being built to keep time for 10,000 years. It ticks just once a year and it, it bongs just once a century. You gave a talk about it in 2004, about building the clock. So where are we now? Where's the clock?

[Stewart Brand]

Clock's in a mountain in West Texas and nearing completion. It'll be operational and should be visible by later in this decade.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

How do you explain the purpose of the clock to people who might think it's a ridiculous way to spend time and money when we have so many problems on earth right here and right now?

[Stewart Brand]

It's art, it's land art. In this particular case, it's a machine It's a great big mechanism that all by itself, just using the energy and the difference between cold night and hot day, drives a genuine clock to keep very good time. And it also has chimes designed by Brian Eno. Jeff Bezos paid for it and also participated in the design. I visited it a couple times. It is intended to be mythic and I think it achieves that.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

I can only imagine the sense of smallness one must feel compared to this timelessness that you are capturing with the project. But I have to say one thing that sort of seems like a paradox to me is that, as you said, one of the biggest supporters of the Long now clock is Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, the sort of king of our on demand consumerist society. And many people blame him for exactly the problems you're hoping to solve, even just a little bit with this project.

[Stewart Brand]

Good Lord. I think that's completely misplaced, really. Talk about access to tools and ideas and that's where I buy most of my stuff, don't you?

[Minouche Zomorodi]

I really try not to, Stuart. I mean, I take a lot of issue with warehouse conditions, how much they pay their workers, how they undercut small businesses and people willing to buy things just cause they can so easily. It just. I take a lot of. I have a lot of problems with Amazon.

[Stewart Brand]

Okay, let's see. Do I have problems with Amazon? The thing I'm having to keep saying, from the beginning with the Internet, it was always a mixed bag. And yet somehow things proceeded and became okay. By and large, what we've got is much wider capabilities and communication opportunities. And we seem to be blaming the folks who provided that because they got big. They got big because we used them.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

Yeah. So not to end on a morbid note, but you do think a lot about the future, Stuart. May I ask what you want to happen after your death? Do you want to be an AI version of yourself to, I don't know, live on in the metaverse? Or are you going to have your body cryogenically frozen so we can de extinct you? What are you going to do?

[Stewart Brand]

I have picked a nice place to be planted. It's one of those sort of semi organic graveyards where you don't have yourself a waterproof crypt. You have some kind of biodegradable coffin. And I can't imagine doing anything cryogenic. And you never know.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

What if we contribute this conversation to like the database that's compiling everything you've ever said so that they could make an AI version of it?

[Stewart Brand]

Oh, God. You know anybody who wants to become a scholar of that? Yeah, sure, why not?

[Minouche Zomorodi]

If you had to pick one, what do you hope your biggest legacy is?

[Stewart Brand]

It's hard to know. You know, legacies have their own life. We held a 50th anniversary of whole Earth Catalog. We printed up a T shirt for people that said, still Hungry, still foolish. And what did I mean at the time? I was its appetite, its willingness to be ridiculous on the way to something you think might be interesting. But everybody has their own reading, I guess.

[Minouche Zomorodi]

That was Stuart Brand. His latest book, Maintenance of Everything Part one, will be out later this year. You can see all of his [e-mail] and learn more about his career in the documentary We Are as Gods. Many thanks to the filmmakers for their help, too. Thank you for listening to Part one of our Prophets of Technology series. Next week, the head of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleiman, and renowned psychologist Sherry Turkish two very different perspectives on how chatbots are changing us. This episode was produced by James Delahousy, Rachel Faulkner White and Matthew Cloutier. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes Katie Monteleone, Fiona Guerin and Tarsha Nahada. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audio engineers were Simon Jennings, Stacey Abbott, Jimmy Keeley and Maggie Luthar. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Roxanne Hylash, Alejandra Salazar and Daniela Balarezzo. I'm Anoush Zamorodi and you have been listening to the TED radio hour from NPR.

[Ray Kurzweil]

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[Ray Kurzweil]

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