ClaimsRay Kurzweil

“"That leads to computers having human intelligence, our putting them inside our brains, connecting them to the cloud, expanding who we are. Today, that's not just a future scenario," Kurzweil said.”

Ray Kurzweil, Google director of engineering, SXSW interview 15 March 2017 A Google Exec Just Claimed The Singularity Will Happen by 2029 (ScienceAlert) archived copy

Factual AI capabilities

Kurzweil says that connecting computers to human brains and the cloud is not just a future scenario but already exists in part today.

Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

What would count as true or false

The claim is about what Kurzweil said. True if a reliable transcript or report confirms Kurzweil stated that connecting computers to human brains and the cloud is 'not just a future scenario' (i.e., already partly happening today). Mostly true if he said this with a minor wording difference. Mixed/mostly false if the quote is substantially altered or taken out of context. False if he made no such statement or said the opposite.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (3)

  1. E1 Kurzweil: AI passes Turing Test by 2029, Singularity 2045 311 Institute (Fanatical Futurist) · 18 March 2017

    “Today, that’s not just a future scenario,” Kurzweil said, “it’s here, in part, and it’s going to accelerate.”

  2. E2 the Kurzweil Library Tracking breakthroughs in tech, science, and world progress. The Kurzweil Library · 20 March 2017 Own record

    “That leads to computers having human intelligence, humans putting them inside our brains, connecting them to the cloud, expanding who we are. Today, that’s not just a future scenario,” Kurzweil said. “It’s partly here, and it’s going to accelerate.”

  3. E3 Ray Kurzweil: Here's What Will Happen When We Connect Our Brains to the Cloud SingularityHub · 23 June 2017

    “In this video, Kurzweil looks ahead to a time in the not-too-distant future when we’ll be able to connect our brains to computers in the cloud.”

Reasoning

E2, an independent report published three days after the claim date, quotes Kurzweil saying "Today, that's not just a future scenario... it's here, in part, and it's going to accelerate." E3, which is not independent of Kurzweil, gives the fuller quote about computers in our brains connected to the cloud, followed by "It's partly here." The two sources differ slightly in wording but agree on the substance: he described brain-cloud connection as partly happening already. E4 describes a later video and does not bear on this statement.

Cite this claim

Ray Kurzweil, “Kurzweil says that connecting computers to human brains and the cloud is not just a future scenario but already exists in part today.” (said 15 March 2017). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_b8c38c38db33, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_b8c38c38db33

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

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More factual claims by Ray Kurzweil

  1. Mostly false Factual 4 June 2026
    “That was not true a year ago. But that’s true today.”

    Large language models being roughly 50% better than human doctors at diagnosing conditions and recommending treatments was not true a year ago but is true today.

  2. Mixed Factual March 2025
    “AI hallucinations are still there, but are becoming much less frequent.”

    AI hallucinations persist but are becoming much less frequent.

  3. Mostly true Factual 29 March 2024
    “And it’s going very, very quickly — at an exponential rate”

    AI progress is advancing very quickly, at an exponential rate.

  4. Mostly true Factual 29 March 2024
    “It was not quite as good, but you could recognize it as Mozart or as Chopin.”

    Kurzweil's early computer music program produced melodies recognizable as in the style of Mozart or Chopin, though not quite as good.

  5. Mostly true Factual 26 May 2022
    “Yes, it was very much for AI.”

    The prizes received by Geoffrey Hinton and by Demis Hassabis and John Jumper were very much for AI.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.