Inventor Raymond Kurzweil Joins Google's Staff as Director of Engineering

Late last week, futurist and inventor Raymond Kurzweil stated that to help turn the next decade's unrealistic visions into reality, he is going to work as the director of engineering at Google (News - Alert).

 Kurzweil is also an author; his books include "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and "Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever”.

"In 1999, I said that in about a decade we would see technologies such as self-driving cars and mobile phones that could answer your questions, and people criticized these predictions as unrealistic," Kurzweil said in an online newsletter.

He continued by stating, Google has demonstrated self-driving cars, and people are indeed asking questions of their Android (News - Alert) phones. Google is at the forefront of much of this development since it is a remarkable trajectory of quickening innovation.

Since his early teens, Kurzweil has always been enthralled by technology, especially machine learning. According to the website, his inventions include the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind along with software designed to enable a computer to write original music.

Kurzweil added that as an inventor, what excites him is working on practical systems that make a difference in people’s lives. In order to turn the next decade's unrealistic visions into reality, he is thrilled to be teaming up with Google to work on some of the hardest problems in computer science.

Peter Norvig, research director for Google, praised Kurzweil's contributions to technology.

In response to an AFP inquiry, Norvig concluded that Google appreciates Kurzweil’s ambitious, long-term thinking and his approach to problem-solving will be incredibly valuable to projects that Google is currently working on.

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