TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY

WHAT IS IT?

           The technological singularity hypothesis is a prediction in which accelerating advances in technology will cause a runaway effect through which artificial intelligence will exceed the human capacity, thus changing or even ending civilization, in an event called the singularity. This term, "technological singularity" was originally composed by Vernor Vinge and portrays a time after which our technological creations exceed the power of human brains. The main idea behind this singularity is Kruzweil's Law.  When the time comes where intelligent can create more intelligent at such rapid speeds, we will enter an era where technological advances move at such rate unimaginable to the human mind.

WHEN WILL IT HAPPEN?

          Many writers link the development of a singularity to exponential growth in several technologies. Moore's Law being the most prominent example, stating the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles every two years. With technological advances moving at the fastest pace we've ever seen, most writers hypothesize a singularity sometime during the 21st century. According to Ray Kurzweil, computers as powerful as the human brain will begin to make their appearance around the year 2020. Moreover, the emergence of artificial intelligence, as Kurzweil believes, will come about sometime around 2029. And with that, humans will have reversed-engineered the brain. With this significant discovery of artificial intelligence, humans would be able to further explore many others ideas such as mind uploading.