Ray Kurzweil - Director of Engineering at Google, famous inventor, author of How to Create a Mind. Immortality by 2045 The onset of the 21st century will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged, as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy, & achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, & longevity. The paradigm shift rate is now doubling every decade, so the twenty-first century will see 20,000 years of progress at today’s rate. Computation, communication, biological technologies - DNA sequencing, etc. - brain scanning, knowledge of the human brain and knowledge in general are all accelerating at an ever faster pace, doubling price-performance, capacity, & bandwidth every year. The more important insights will be gained from reverse-engineering the human brain. We will ultimately merge with our machines, live indefinitely and be a billion times more intelligent.