Ray Kurzweil

I photographed Ray Kurzweil for DIE ZEIT at the public library in Newton, just outside Boston. We met him there for an interview with Kerstin Kohlenberg and Stephan Lebert, surrounded by the books he still hopes will survive a digital future.

The interview moves between Kurzweil’s early experiments with computers and the changes he expects next. He recalls writing software as a teenager that composed music, and his long friendship with AI researcher Marvin Minsky, with whom he discussed intelligence and consciousness.

To demonstrate the pace of change, he plays an AI-generated podcast about his book. He sees such tools as steps toward a future in which brain implants connect people directly to artificial intelligence, expanding memory and thought beyond biological limits.

For Kurzweil, merging with AI is a way to retain human agency as machines become more capable. His confidence extends to longevity: he expects technological progress to transform medicine and eventually make death from aging avoidable.

Kohlenberg and Lebert challenge that confidence with questions about affordability, lost jobs and public resistance. Kurzweil acknowledges the possibility of rapid unemployment and social unrest, suggesting a basic income during the transition. The conversation keeps returning to the gap between technical possibility and people’s ability to adapt.