[gavanwoolery]

I'm probably preaching to the wrong crowd here, but I'm not talking in hindsight-bias. I mean, even in the early days others were making similar predictions - not all of them were as vocal though. Also, I'm pretty sure he did not single-handedly invent all the listed things before anyone else had even thought of it -- as is the case with any invention, you probably have a few thousand people thinking about the idea or researching it before one person steps forward with a good implementation -- and I'm sure Kurzweil found inspiration in his colleagues work, and there were probably earlier implementations of his ideas.

This does not mean he was not smart, I am simply making a general truth: there are few "original" inventions, and many "obvious" inventions. If you do not think these things were obvious, how long do you think it would take for the next implementation to appear? I would bet 1-3 years at most. No single human is that extraordinary -- some just work harder than others at becoming visible.