Technological singularity
The technological singularity or tech singularity is the idea that a machine or computer, or a group of machines and computers, will one day be smarter than humans.
Because it has not happened yet, nobody really knows what the technological singularity will do, or if it will even happen. Nonetheless, the technological singularity has been a subject in many science fiction works, such as The Terminator, The Matrix, and the Borg in Star Trek. In most depictions of the singularity, machines have consciousness and humans are considered to be useless. The futurist (who studies about the future) and inventor Ray Kurzweil believes the Singularity will happen about the year 2045. The major impetus driving toward the singularity, according to Kurzweil, is that according to Moore's Law, computers are doubling in memory capacity every 18 months. According to Kurzweil, by 2029, computers will be as intelligent as human beings (see artificial intelligence).[1]
Possible effects of such a singularity can include
- Human extinction or enslavement
- Mass unemployment, starvation, etc.
- A post-scarcity system
- Cybernetic immortality
- Mind uploading
Etc.
Technological Singularity Media
Ray Kurzweil writes that, due to paradigm shifts, a trend of exponential growth extends Moore's law from integrated circuits to earlier transistors, vacuum tubes, relays, and electromechanical computers. He predicts that the exponential growth will continue, and that in a few decades the computing power of all computers will exceed that of ("unenhanced") human brains, with superhuman artificial intelligence appearing around the same time.
Moore's Law over 120 Years
According to Kurzweil, his logarithmic graph of 15 lists of paradigm shifts for key historic events shows an exponential trend.
Schematic Timeline of Information and Replicators in the Biosphere: Gillings et al.'s "major evolutionary transitions" in information processing.
Amount of digital information worldwide (5×1021 bytes) versus human genome information worldwide (1019 bytes) in 2014
In this sample recursive self-improvement scenario, humans modifying an AI's architecture would be able to double its performance every three years through, for example, 30 generations before exhausting all feasible improvements (left). If instead the AI is smart enough to modify its own architecture as well as human researchers can, its time required to complete a redesign halves with each generation, and it progresses all 30 feasible generations in six years (right).
Related pages
References
- ↑ Kurzweil, Ray The Singularity is Near 2006
Other websites
- Technological Singularity subreddit
- The Technological Singularity and Merging with Machines - BigThink.com
