Ok buddies! Some of you may have been wondering "wassup with AI and Singularity", but this is just the obvious fact; singularity is inevitable and we should just align our thoughts towards it. Many inventions are now pointing out to the actualization of singularity, but how soon should we expect this "technological singularity"? I believe this is no longer a case of whether the future would favour technology over biology, but a case of integrating technology and biology into one single entity. Welcome to the future, guys.

[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Like I have always done, I would like to climb on the shoulders of people that have seen further in the area of singularity.

For a clearer understanding, and for the benefit of the uninitiated, I would quickly explain what technological singularity is. In a layman's term, technological singularity is the point in which technological advancements and enhanced artificial intelligence will create machines that would surpass the human level of intelligence. This would lead to the unification of the organic humans and their devices. At this point, some laws of nature will cease to exist.

Just like it has been evident in this era, the exponential growth in technology has enabled humans to achieve unimaginable feats, not only that; boundaries have been broken, and the course of nature has been altered permanently.

Have you ever imagined the entirety of the human race being interconnect together with their devices into a single whole? Well, that's exactly what singularity is all about.

According to one of the foremost proponents of AI; Professor Jurgen Schmidhuber (professor of artificial intelligence, and founder NNAISENSE AI):

We are less than 30 years away from singularity... And we will witness mechanical devices that would be as complex as the human brain, but faster. - Jurgen Schmidhuber. Source [Paraphrased by me]

Manifestations of Singularity

As scientists, we work with facts, and there are some facts that have established the inevitability of singularity, and I would run through some of them.

1. Explosive Superintelligence

We may have been aware that Artificial Intelligence is all about simulating the cognitive abilities of humans in machines using Augmented Machine Learning and Neural Links. But this has gone way beyond just simulating human intelligence, but creating a whole new level of intelligence, which is void of human influence. You won't be wrong to call it "Autonomous Machine Intelligence".

[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons]

As the days go by, AI is becoming super smart, and this has left the world in awe.

Here's a very practical example:

Recently, two AI chatbots created by Facebook were seen to communicate with themselves using a language they created by themselves. No wonder Facebook had to shut down the program. You can reap up details here.

Does this send any signal to you? If not, let me help you with this:

Robotics are moving to the point where they can become self-aware, and we all know the pecks associated with robotic self-awareness. That is why it has always been advocated that technological singularity would be one of the options to employ in the maintenance of our superiority as species.

You may have also been aware that the world is already seething with impending challenges; ranging from; global warming, pollution, and other challenges that is set to alter the natural course of our dear Earth. But this is nothing compared to the changes that would be heralded with the advent of technological singularity.I made a comment to someone sometime ago, and I would like to reiterate it again here:

The advancement of technology will transform our lives into something beyond humans, and this will initiate an entirely new revolution. - @samminator

Believe me, this revolution is not like the earlier witnessed Industrial Revolution, but would be a revolution in which humans will become one with their devices.

To further buttress this point, here's a very witty comment by the Director of Engineering at Google inc; Ray Kurzweil (with 21 honorary doctorates)

In the year 2019, AI will attain human-level of intelligence. - Ray Kurzweil. Source

2. Paradigm shift from biology to technology

This is another pointer to the actualization of singularity. The humans (organic humans) as we know, are limited in capabilities and functionalities, even though they have been observed as very complex creatures. In the quest to even-out these limitations, technology was employed. But as you know, this is not without a cost.

Firstly, this was manifested in cybernetic augmentations, which have been creating cyborgs (cybernetic organisms). Then the brain-computer interface came on the scene to potentially merge humans with machines.

[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Let us look at this holistically. Before now, humans have been seen to give intelligence to machines, but this trend is about to be reversed. The advent of singularity would give a boost to super intelligence, and this in turn would boost our intelligence (in other words; machines would give us intelligence. What a paradigm shift).

3. Information overload

This is the final point I want to talk about in the manifestations of singularity.

As the days pass, the amount of information being created by the activities of humans increases. In 2014, it was recorded that the amount of data created by humans hit a record 5 Zettabyte (5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) and this figure has been increasing over time. And as we know, humans lack the computational abilities to handle such data, that is why singularity has become imminent. 

Effect of Singularity

There are quite a number of expected effects of singularity, but I would just mention one

• Digital Immortality: This is quite different from achieving biological immortality (where the process of senescence is reversed or stopped); in this case the person's information and consciousness can be uploaded on a computer system and preserved posthumously. The information can be downloaded in future, maybe to a synthetic body. This is just like preserving someone's personality through time.

This tech is set to beckon the long awaited immortality. Well, the future of singularity has already been heralded; we should just align to the revolution.

Hail Technology!!

Thanks for reading

References for further reading: Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5

Images are CCO licensed

gif by @foundation