Raymond "
Ray"
Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American author, computer scientist, inventor and
futurist. Aside from futurology, he is involved in fields such as
optical character recognition (OCR),
text-to-speech synthesis,
speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health,
artificial intelligence (AI),
transhumanism, the
technological singularity, and
futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements, and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on
life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.