directed by Barry Ptolemy
RAY KURZWEIL has a recurring dream. In it, he is walking through an endless series of empty rooms, unable to find another human being. This is his vision of death, one marked by profound loneliness and exile from human relationships. In , âs moving documentary about the futurist, we find that this same loneliness haunts Kurzweil through the spectre of his father, who died from heart disease when Kurzweil was in his twenties.
âI felt frustrated in that keeping him alive was a goal that slipped through my fingers,â Kurzweil laments. Throughout the film we see that Kurzweil has spent his adult life avenging his fatherâs death with attempts to vanquish death itself. âHereâs to living forever,â says Kurzweilâs wife, Sonya, raising her glass of red wine. âThatâs not just a salutation in our family.â
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Whether Kurzweil is a modern-day prophet or a crackpot is a matter of debate, though no one can deny his prolific resumĂ© of inventions and his impressive track record for predicting the future of technology. The opinions in the film range from that of MITâs (â[Kurzweil] takes things that everyone agrees on and principles for extrapolation that everyone agrees on and makes predictions that no one agrees with.â) to Wired editor Kevin Kelly (âRayâs right, but not about the timing.â) to San Francisco Chronicle reporter Tom Abate (âDo we really want old codgers with a lot of money hanging around and mucking up the works?â).
In telling Kurzweilâs personal story, Transcendent Man also tells the story of humanityâs future, be it a utopian or dystopian one. Remarkably, the two stories come together as if inextricably linked. Perhaps this isnât surprising: Kurzweilâs preoccupations represent the most basic aspects of the human condition â existential angst and a fear of death combined with a deep sense of loss. Kurzweil is optimistic that these will melt away in the next two decades when humans merge with machines as the confluence of biotechnology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence transform our world beyond recognition. His hopefulness is infectious.
Perhaps Kurzweilâs optimism is of a tragic variety â but that doesnât mean he is wrong.
