Even transhumanists shudder to hear Ray Kurzweil described as their leader. But he’s running for president!
Well — not really. As my friend Aaron Saenz reports at the Singularity Hub, Kurzweil has been nominated for Americans Elect, an online organization attempting to draft a third-party candidate for the 2012 presidential election. He looks to be one of maybe a couple hundred candidates listed, and currently has 25 supporters (their top listed candidate is, shockingly, Ron Paul, with 1,746 supporters). Saenz’s post has the details, among which is that apparently the Singularity Hub itself was involved in nominating Kurzweil, and Kurzweil may not even know about it himself yet. Looks like Internet-Kurzweil just became self-aware.
Of course, it’s a little strange for either Kurzweil or his followers to be getting involved in such an arbitrary, outmoded human institution as the American electoral process. After all, as Kurzweil wrote in The Singularity Is Near, “A charismatic leader is part of the old model. That’s something we want to get away from.” But I guess you’ve got to join the system to beat it.
Speaking of selling out going mainstream, where else did Ray Kurzweil appear recently but in the Best Buy Super Bowl ad: