A lot of what they build in Silicon Valley these days is pretty mundane: sexting apps, social games, and new ways to "share" things over the Internet. So it's pretty exciting when you hear about someone who has some really crazy ideas for what the future might hold.
One such person is a new Google hire named Ray Kurzweil.
The geeks among you already know who he is.
But I only learned about him from a Bloomberg BusinessWeek story by Ashlee Vance.
In it, Vance writes about Kurzweil's plans to…
…Bring his dead father back to life.
…Help humanity “live long enough to live forever” and "transcend biology."
…Engineer the "singularity," which is in Vance's words, "the moment when superintelligent machines light up with something approximating life and either destroy humanity or carry it to unimaginable heights."
At Google, Kurzweil will have funding to puruse all these ambitions and more.
Maybe that sounds silly to you (or to Google shareholders).
