Ray Kurzweil: What I see is quite different than what a lot of people see, because I think a major failing of even some very thoughtful observers is the real implications of the acceleration of technological change. If you say that technical change is accelerating, people are quick to agree with that. It’s just sort of “motherhood and apple pie.” But people don’t really incorporate that. I call this the “intuitive linear view” versus the “historical exponential view.” People assume that in the next 50 years we’ll see 50 years of progress at today’s rate of progress. I’ve had these arguments. People will say, “Oh well, we won’t see nanotechnology self-replicators for a hundred years. I say, “Well yes, a hundred years at today’s rate of progress, which will take 25 years.” We’re doubling the paradigm shift rate every ten years. I mean, that’s something I pulled out of the air. I’ve been studying this. I have models of it. That means the 21st century will not be a hundred years of progress. It will be 20,000 years of progress at today’s rate of progress. And the 20th century was not a hundred years, but was 25 years at today’s rate of progress because we weren’t going at this rate of progress for the whole century. So the 21st century will be a thousand times greater in terms of technological change than the 20th century, and the 20th century was pretty profound. That’s quite a different view than if you just think in linear terms, which most people do, despite the fact that they lived through this acceleration, but they assume that it’s going to stop or they just don’t think about it.