| > I define it as when machines understand people. I'd define it as when people understand people. - - - - Going back to the source, to von Neumann, "the singularity" was literally a mathematical singularity in the curves of accelerating technology. Vinge thought about self-improving artificial intelligence: > Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. > Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers (and some further dangers) are presented. https://mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html He was a little precipitous in his estimates of the time frame, unless you count the GAIs we've already created. It seems clear to me that we have already built self-improving artificial entities, to wit: Google, Facebook, etc... are GAIs. I think they are cyborgs, with whole humans as neurons. I suspect they even have self-awareness "carried" on the substratum of their human components' self-awareness. - - - - But to me the real singularity isn't going to take place in cyberspace, the real singularity happens when people start learning how to operate their own minds more effectively. This is happening already too, but "the future is here it's just not evenly distributed". Without going on and on about it, there is a global current of cybernetic psychology (happening largely outside of the view of academic psychology) that is changing and transforming humanity, or, more precisely, allowing humanity to transform itself. |