Part 2> 'Gandhijiis a prophet for communication revolution age'

Sudheendra Kulkarni : When did you first get introduced to the name and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi?
Ray Kurzweil : Gandhi is a great icon in the US. I had read about him as a child in children's books. I continued to read about him in high school and college. He was always an inspiring figure to me because he embodied the philosophy of selfless serviceand nonviolent struggle to overcome oppression. I was very active in the Civil Rights Movement in the US in the 1960s. I participated in the Civil Rights marches in the South and in Washington, DC. Mahatma Gandhi was definitelya hero of that movement

Sudheendra Kulkarni : That inspiration that you as a young man felt was for a particular cause and for a particular movement. But now you are a renowned inventor and a thought leader for the digital age. Does Mahatma Gandhi continue to inspire you?

Ray Kurzweil : The reason I respect him more is that, like him, I like the experience of solving people's problems. What's exciting about coming up with technological inventionis that it can overcome some limitation or suffering of human beings. The most satisfying research project that I have stayed involved infor the past 35 years is a reading machine for the blind. Mahatma Gandhi followed the same path. He saw suffering and he put his mind to overcoming it. This shows the ability of the human thought toovercome suffering if you are passionate about your goal. And even though Gandhi was not a technology inventor, he demonstrated that human suffering can be overcome through the devoted application of human thought.

S udheendra Kulkarni : Do you think that information technology, the way it is evolving now, will be a force to serve the cause of peace and nonviolence in the world? Gandhi had prophesied the coming of"undreamt of scientific discoveries in non-violence". Is information technology likely to fulfill that prophecy?

Ray Kurzweil : I think it does that. People talk about the wisdom of the crowd in the age of the Internet. Wisdom ofthe collective is always greater than the wisdom of any of the individuals. And electronic communication does harness the wisdom of the crowd. Let's say, a set of people in a country or in different parts of the world have a particular disease. They all will get insights aboutwhat to do, and they will share these insights in the group electronically. And this knowledge will be far greater than any individual or any doctor can possibly have. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we also see the 'wisdom' of the lynch mobs. In the US, bullying over the Internet has become a big issue. So technology can always be used for both good and bad purposes. But the chances of it being used for peace and human good are fargreater.

Sudheendra Kulkarni : You have argued in your books that the distinctionbetween technology and biology will begin to blur in the decades ahead. As information technology becomes integral to our being, including our bodies, do you think that human beings will begin to be driven more and more by what is good forthem -- good for themselves as individualsand also good for the human race and the planet as a whole?

Ray Kurzweil : I believe that that's true. Technology is becoming more and more like biology. It's inspired by biology. We are beginning to learn about the limitations of human thought. What leads usto be prejudiced, for example.And these technologies -- social networks etc, and the dialogue and lobbying that they facilitate -- help in overcoming ignorance and prejudices. See how information and communication technologies are making our world more democratic. Even on the level of politics, if we look back to the middle of the last century, there were very few democracies in the world. Today most countries are democracies, even though they may not be perfect. Information and communication technologies are also democratising human interactions in other ways. For example, the interaction between students and teachers. Students now have access to knowledge from many other sources, and are not dependent on teachers alone. The same is true about the interaction between patients and doctors. If a patient has a chronic disease,and if she is networked with the community having the same disease, then she knows all about it. Similarly, political activists who are partof a social network can come together, raise funds in just three minutes, and solve a problem by taking decisions collaboratively. Now groups ofnetworked people can solve problems ways that individuals could not do earlier, and this is being demonstrated in more and more areas.

®™ RNK