Ray Kurzweil, known best to the music industry for
developing the Kurzweil keyboard, has teamed up with Google to create an
artificial intelligence for the internet giant. After meeting with Stevie
Wonder in 1982, Kurzweil was inspired to create a new generation of music
synthesizers capable of accurately duplicating the sounds of real musical
instruments. Kurzweil Music Systems was founded in the same year, and in 1984,
the Kurzweil K250 was completed. The synth was capable of imitating a number of
instruments. During tests musicians were unable to discern the difference
between the piano sounds produced by Kurzweil K250 and an actual grand piano.
The recording and mixing capabilities of the machine also made it possible for
a single user to play and record all of the elements of an entire orchestral
piece.
The inventor and futurist is also the subject of a
documentary that follows him on a world speaking tour in which he expounds on
his ideas about the merging of man and machine, which he predicts will occur in
the not-so-distant future. This compelling piece follows the inventor on his
quest toward a wildly optimistic technology-enhanced future. Documentary
available now through Netflix.
“There’s
no more important project than understanding Intelligence and recreating it. I
do envision a fundamental approach based on everything we understand about how
the human brain [works]. And there are some things we don’t yet understand so I
plan to go off and explore some of my own ideas about how certain things work.”
– Ray Kurzweil
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