Speed Reading — Level 2 — 200 wpm 

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A scientist thinks robots will be more intelligent than humans by 2029. His name is Ray Kurzweil. He works for Google as Director of Engineering. He is a leading expert on artificial intelligence (A.I.). Mr Kurzweil says computers will learn from experiences, just like us. He says they will tell jokes and stories, and even flirt. His 2029 prediction is a lot sooner than many people thought. In 1999, many experts said it would take hundreds of years for computers to be very intelligent. Now it won't be long before computer intelligence is one billion times more powerful than the human brain.

Mr Kurzweil joked that many years ago, people thought he was a little crazy. His thinking has stayed the same but everyone else has changed their thinking. He said his views were not crazy any more. He said the rest of the world was changing its view. He pointed to examples of high-tech things we use, see or read about every day. These make us think computers are intelligent. He said people changed because the public has seen things like voice-recognition technology, where you talk to a computer. He also said Google's self-driving cars make people think about computer intelligence.

Back to the Artificial Intelligence lesson.

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