There's an article by Bill Joy called "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us." Wired magazine, still posted on their site I believe. He wrote it after meeting Kurzweil. I think Kurzweil is into the whole immortality thing. Aside from Artificial Intelligence, some people look forward to uploading their consciousness into computer systems. Kurzweil said in his book that he took lots of pills, had reduced his aging and so on. So, he wants to upload his life experience into some machine. He didn't say that people with uploaded consciousness could "live forever,," but for "as long as they wanted."

I forget what Kurzweil said about the Rules of Robotics. Both he and Joy surmised that humans (us, in our present forms) wouldn't be in any danger from smart machines. The new AI would be a million times more intelligent than us in just a few iterations, so what harm could we pose? Can't recall if it was Kurzweil or Joy who said we'd basically be kept as pets.

For some reason I just thought of They're Made Out of Meat by Terry Bisson. A short, humorous story about intelligence.

And here's the Bill Joy article
Why the Future Doesn't Need Us.