The technological singularity is when the human race's technology becomes significantly more intelligent than their creators. It's suppose to happen in 2045 (according to Ray Kurweil). Who looking forward to it and what do you guys think about it ?
The original Singularity concept was invented by the mathematician and SF author Vernor Vinge. Although Stanislaw Lem played with the basic ideas even earlier. In Vinge's original concept, the idea is that the creation of any greater than human intelligence (whether via AI, intelligence augmentation (IA), or genetic engineering (or some combo of these) very rapidly leads to a society/civilization/world that is essentially incomprehensible to merely human level intelligence. At this point all attempts to predict the future of civilization by beings like us become essentially impossible and so we face the predictive equivalent of the event horizon around a black hole (aka a singularity). Hence the name. There are various schools of thought and organizations around the singularity concept, including both Vinge's original idea and others that have come along later such as Kurzweil's. Ideas of when the Singularity may actually occur range from 30-50yrs to some centuries hence depending on who you ask. Possible described paths to a technological Singularity include AI, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and intelligence augmentation (either via drugs, genetic engineering, or some form of advanced human-computer interface, possibly direct neural interface). There are various books on the subject from various perspectives. Yes, this is something of an area of interest for me (if that wasn't obvious already). Todd
