[reasonattlm]

The point of the technological singularity insofar as it interacts with reasonable prediction of the future is that reasonable predictions tell you that it is next to impossible to make any sort of reasonable cultural/climate/landmass/population/other soft prediction much past this century.

Hard takeoff scenarios seem to be unlikely (no self-improving AI going from human project to godlike status in a couple of hours while rolling its own molecular nanotechnology foundation). The reasons for this are the same reasons that make rapid global takeover of the internet by a viral monoculture unlikely today: results take effort, some results are opposed, some results are intrinsically hard, no breakthrough happens in a vacuum.

But: by 2040 it will be possible to emulate human brains the hard way. By all means tell me that every human culture will refrain from taking full advantage of all that can follow from that over the decades that follow. The economic benefits of human and built-from human intelligences instantiated to order are incredible. The possibilities spiraling out from that are so much greater than everything that has come before that it becomes very, very hard to say what comes next.

You could see a world in which there are trillions of entities of human and greater intelligence by 2100. With their own cultures, so much greater and broader and more varied than ours as to make us the first snowflake in the blizzard. They may or may not have access to molecular nanotechnology and as much of the solar system as they care to begin making over by then. What will they build? How can you say? Culture determines creation.

Equally, you might not see that world. But it looks most plausible to me that software life will erupt from our culture in much the same way as we erupted from Greek tribes thousands of years ago - but much more rapidly. If you can show me you can sensibly predict the details of today's world by an examination of the Mediterranean Bronze Age, then I might be more inclined to think it possible to talk about what lies on the other side of emulated human intelligence.

[airlocksoftware]

Charles Stross is not unaware of this; he's written multiple novels on the topic of the singularity including "Accelerando" and "Rapture of the Nerds". I recommend either of them if you're interested in the subject

This blog post is simply a different approach to the topic. Basically, what would happen if the singularity never happens and it's just us humans trying to solve the problems on our planet.

[reasonattlm]

Insofar as fiction goes, the technological singularity has been done. It's sliding out of fashion for the moment. The authors have done their job, pointed it out, on to the next thing. But the real world continues to trundle along as it always has: the underlying trends and emerging technological capabilities remain even as fashions in SF come and go.