Our Heads in the Cloud

Ray Kurzweil

We do our thinking with our neocortex, and humans are distinguished because of the size and power of our neocortex.  There was an explosive growth in our neocortex 65M years ago after the Cretaceous Extinction Event. And we're coming up to another explosive change.

We already rely on the Web as our personal information store, and thinking assistant. We'll soon be able to connect our human neocortex to a 'neocortex in the cloud', through nanobots in the brain.  Our thinking will be a mix of biological and non-biological thinking, resulting in a gigantic leap in technology and culture. Kurzweil's stunning prediction was presented with his usual casual confidence.

I think Chris Anderson spoke for all of us in the audience when he said "This creeps me out a bit". Kurzweil said  it happen one step at a time so we'd be ready for it when it happens. 

Kurzweil always shakes you up with his predictions. This time was no exception.