Editing Ray Kurzweil (section)

===Past predictions===

Kurzweil's first book, ''[[The Age of Intelligent Machines]]'', presents his ideas about the future. Written from 1986 to 1989, it was published in 1990. Building on [[Ithiel de Sola Pool]]'s "Technologies of Freedom" (1983), Kurzweil claims to have forecast the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]] due to new technologies such as cellular phones and fax machines disempowering authoritarian governments by removing state control of the flow of information.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kurzweil |first=Ray |title=The Age of Intelligent Machines |year=1990 |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge, MA |isbn=0-262-11121-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/ageofintelligent00kurz/page/446 446] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/ageofintelligent00kurz/page/446 }}</ref> In the book, Kurzweil also extrapolates trends in improving computer chess software performance, predicting that computers will beat the best human players "by the year 2000".<ref>{{cite book |last=Kurzweil |first=Ray |title=The Age of Intelligent Machines |year=1990 |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge, MA |isbn=0-262-11121-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/ageofintelligent00kurz/page/133 133] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/ageofintelligent00kurz/page/133 }}</ref> In May 1997, IBM's [[Deep Blue (chess computer)|Deep Blue]] computer [[Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov|defeated]] World Champion [[Garry Kasparov]] in [[Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov|a well-publicized match]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Weber |first=Bruce |title=Swift and Slashing, Computer Topples Kasparov |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/12/nyregion/swift-and-slashing-computer-topples-kasparov.html |access-date=2013-02-13 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=May 12, 1997}}</ref>

Kurzweil foresaw the explosive growth in worldwide Internet use that began in the 1990s. When ''[[The Age of Intelligent Machines]]'' was published, there were only 2.6&nbsp;million Internet users in the world,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_2001_Feb/ai_70910777/pg_3 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120629012339/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_2001_Feb/ai_70910777/pg_3 |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 29, 2012 |title=Fleeing the dot.com era: decline in Internet usage |access-date=September 15, 2014 }}</ref> and the medium was unreliable, difficult to use, and deficient in content. He also said that the Internet would explode not only in the number of users but in content, eventually granting users access "to international networks of libraries, data bases, and information services". Additionally, Kurzweil claims to have correctly foreseen that the preferred mode of Internet access would be through wireless systems, and estimated that this development would become practical for widespread use in the early 21st century. In October 2010, Kurzweil released his report "How My Predictions Are Faring" in [[PDF]] format,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kurzweil |first=Ray |date=October 2010 |title=How My Predictions Are Faring |url=https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/images/How-My-Predictions-Are-Faring.pdf}}</ref> analyzing the predictions he made in his books ''The Age of Intelligent Machines'', ''The Age of Spiritual Machines'', and ''The Singularity is Near''. Of the 147 predictions, Kurzweil claimed that 115 were "entirely correct", 12 were "essentially correct", 17 were "partially correct", and three were "wrong". Combining the "entirely" and "essentially" correct, Kurzweil's claimed accuracy rate comes to 86%.

In ''[[Newsweek]]'' magazine, [[Daniel Lyons]] criticized Kurzweil for some of his incorrect predictions for 2009, such as that the economy would continue to boom, that a U.S. company would have a [[market capitalization]] of more than $1&nbsp;trillion, that a supercomputer would achieve 20 [[FLOPS|petaflops]], that speech recognition would be in widespread use, and that cars would drive themselves using sensors installed in highways.<ref name="Newsweek May 2009 page 2">{{cite web |last=Lyons |first=Daniel |date=May 2009 |title=Ray Kurzweil Wants to Be a Robot |url=https://www.newsweek.com/ray-kurzweil-wants-be-robot-80265 |access-date=2009-05-22 |work=Newsweek}}</ref> To the charge that a 20-petaflop supercomputer had not been produced, Kurzweil responded that he considered Google a giant supercomputer, and that it was indeed capable of 20 petaflops.<ref name="Newsweek May 2009 page 2" />

''Forbes'' magazine claimed that Kurzweil's predictions for 2009 were mostly inaccurate, with seven incorrect, four partially correct, and one correct. For example, Kurzweil predicted, "The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition", which was not the case.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/03/20/ray-kurzweils-predictions-for-2009-were-mostly-inaccurate/ |last=Kurzweil |first=Ray |title=Ray Kurzweil's Predictions For 2009 Were Mostly Inaccurate |year=2012 |magazine=Forbes |access-date=2016-01-05}}</ref>