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Singularity not Conspiracy
Are we approaching a posthumanist society?
What will it mean to us if we are?
Will we survive?
In future studies, a technological singularity (also referred to as just the Singularity) is a predicted future event where technological progress and societal change accelerate due to the advent of superhuman intelligence, changing our environment beyond the ability of pre-Singularity humans to comprehend or reliably predict. This event is named by analogy with the breakdown of modern physics knowledge near the gravitational singularity of a black hole.
Such consequences were discussed in the 1960s by I. J. Good, and use of the term singularity to describe technological progress was first used by John von Neumann in the 1950s, and the Singularity was vastly popularized in the 1980s by Vernor Vinge. It is disputed when or if the Singularity will occur, but futurists most commonly estimate the third decade of the 21st century.
Others, most notably Raymond Kurzweil, have proposed theories expanding Moore's law into types of computation beyond normal transistors, suggesting an exponential pattern of technological progress persisting thoughout human history and even before the beginning of life on Earth. According to Kurzweil, this pattern culminates in unimaginable technological progress in the 21st century leading to a singularity. Taken from Wikipedia.
-Whirly
Discuss
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Thank you
Basically the prediction is that wonders will happen in the next 40 years, based on processing speed and AI.
It could be anything from the Matrix and terminator techno horrors to just so may caluculations taking place so quickly extrapolating in all directions that all physics and maths questions become solved almost instantly leading to incredible new technologies.
The premise and it is a strangely compelling one is outlined in the information and table below, events are speeding up!
When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of key events in human history show an exponential trend. Lists prepared among others by Carl Sagan, Paul D. Boyer, Encyclopedia Britannica, American Museum of Natural History and University of Arizona, compiled by Ray Kurzweil.
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Singularity in gravitational terms = a black hole everything goes infinite
Singularity in technological terms things move so fast you can't predict the change properly the events have gone infinite. Thats sort of the analogy they all use.
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To a level however we can safely say that at the moment computers don't work or extrapolate fast enough to turn theories into reality, is the Wizard of Oz idea and we can't predict if it happens if it will be bad or good. Interestingly Cyberpunk etc owes a great deal to this concept.
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Aug 6th, 2005 06:13 PM
