Raymond Kurzweil has founded four successful businesses, all based on artificial intelligence technology he developed. He pioneered systems for optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, and speech recognition. He developed the CCD (charge-coupled device) flatbed scanner, and the first electronic keyboard to synthesize the sounds of acoustic instruments. His interest in artificial intelligence began in high school, when he built a computer and programmed it to compose music in the style of different composers. This project won him first prize in the International...