(Popular Mechanics via MSN) – An American computer scientist-turned-futurist, Kurzweil has long believed that humanity is headed toward what’s known as “the singularity,” when man and machine merge. In 1999, Kurzweil theorized that artificial general intelligence would be achieved once humanity could achieve a technology capable of a trillion calculations per second, which he pegged to occur 2029. Experts at the time scoffed at the idea, figuring it’d be at least a century or more, but with Kurzweil’s timeline only a few years off—and talk of AGI spreading—that decades-old prediction is beginning to loom large.

Now in his new book published last month, The Singularity is Nearer (a play on his 2005 book of the same name minus an “er”), Kurzweil doubles down on these ideas in the modern era of artificial intelligence. (Read More)