Ray Kurzweil
Author, inventor and futurist
An inventor and futurist whose work on optical character recognition, text-to-speech and speech recognition led to popular books on AI and the technological singularity.
Biography
Ray Kurzweil is an American computer scientist, author, entrepreneur and inventor, born in 1948 and raised in Queens, New York. He built computing devices and statistical programs as a boy and was involved with computers by age 12.
He is known for work in optical character recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology and electronic keyboard instruments, and for books on artificial intelligence, transhumanism, the technological singularity and futurism. He received the 1999 National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Bill Clinton, the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2001, election to the National Academy of Engineering in 2001, and induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002.
Notable contributions
Pioneered OCR, text-to-speech and speech recognition
Developed technology in optical character recognition, text-to-speech synthesis and speech recognition that helped improve human-machine communication.
Received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation
Awarded the United States' highest honor in technology in 1999 by President Bill Clinton.
Wrote The Singularity Is Near
Authored a widely read book on the technological singularity, artificial intelligence and life extension.