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Any author or filmmaker seeking ideas for a sci-fi yarn about the implications of artificial intelligence -- good or bad -- would be smart to talk to Ray Kurzweil.
Kurzweil, the acclaimed inventor and futurist, believes that humans and technology are blurring -- note the smartphone appendages in almost everyone's hand -- and will eventually merge.
"We are a human-machine civilization. Everybody has been enhanced with computer technology," he told a capacity crowd of more than 3,000 tech-savvy listeners Monday at the South by Southwest Interactive conference. "They're really part of who we are.
"If we can convince people that computers have complexity of thought and nuance ... we'll come to accept them as human."
A pioneer in the field of speech recognition, Kurzweil is perhaps bestknown for his bestseller, "The Singularity is Near," which predicts that in the future we will augment our bodies with technology, including robotics and artificial intelligence.
"We created these tools to extend our reach," he said -- something we've been doing as humans "ever since we first picked up a stick to reach a tree branch."
Asked by interviewer Lev Grossman whether artificial intelligence will lead to malevolent machines that will come to dominate humans, he said he was more concerned about what humans will do to themselves. "I don't see it as 'us vs. them.' I see it as 'us vs. us.' "
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