Futurist Ray Kurzweil, 17 Years Old, Appears on “I’ve Got a Secret” (1965)

Ray Kurzweil — he’s the futur­ist of our time, a prophet of tech­nol­o­gy who fore­sees a day when we will achieve Sin­gu­lar­i­ty, a moment when humans will enjoy super­in­tel­li­gence and longer life expectan­cies (per­haps even immor­tal­i­ty) thanks to rapid tech­no­log­i­cal advances. It’s heady stuff, and you can learn more about it by watch­ing his open­ing speech at the first Exec­u­tive Pro­gram at Sin­gu­lar­i­ty Uni­ver­si­ty.

Now we take you back to 1965, when Kurzweil was­n’t yet a futur­ist. Only 17 years old, he was a wun­derkind, a high school stu­dent immersed in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence who tin­kered away, and even­tu­al­ly fig­ured out how to pro­gram a com­put­er to pro­duce orig­i­nal musi­cal com­po­si­tions. When the pro­duc­ers of I’ve Got a Secret dis­cov­ered his tal­ents, they brought the young Kurzweil on the show. And the rest you can watch on the video­tape above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Young Frank Zap­pa Plays the Bicy­cle on The Steve Allen Show (1963)

Jim­my Page, 13, Plays Gui­tar on BBC Tal­ent Show (1957)

John Cage Per­forms Water Walk on “I’ve Got a Secret” (1960)