In your preliminary work, have you found that the younger the theorist, the later the date for the singularity?

So far what I think I'm going to find is that older theorists will be disappointed with the notion that they'll "just miss" immortality. That was the general sense I got from an interview I conducted two weeks ago with a 70 year-old physicist that was well aware of "singularity" and "global brain" theory.

What's your take on Kurzweil's 2045 prediction? Is it rooted in solid thinking or is it wishful?

It's not just Kurzweil at this point. Most theory related to key aspects of the singularity (e.g., Internet, computers, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, etc.) converge on interesting possibilities in the 2040s. Even Robin Hanson's analysis of human economic growth modes suggests big changes in the 2040s. In my own work I am interested in understanding the energy aspect of our next system (as it relates to the Human Metasystem Transition Theory I proposed at the Global Brain Institute). From my perspective the next system is dependent on the exploitation of a new energy source and most projections indicate (to me at least) that this should be realized in the 2030s (enough time to support the transition to a post-singularity humanity in the 2040s).

The fact that so many different people have constructed models on so many different aspects of human evolution and technological change, and that so many suggest an interesting 2040s... it definitely increases my confidence. I remember being most convinced when I was doing the research for developing Human Metasystem Transition Theory. When I compared the Moore's Law Growth Curve with the Economic Exponential Growth Model they both converged on a system change in the 2040s.