You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: If the Singularity Is Not Happening...
(ahem) We, uh, kinda need an explanation of what you mean by using the term 'singularity'. I've read about it quite a bit and it means different things to different people. Some think of it as 'the rapture of the nerds' where the faithful will be transported to cyberspace....
huh...that sound familiar somehow. Where have I heard that before?
The singularity is the point where artificial intelligence surpasses the human intelligence. Things will change rapidly at that point, humanity as we know it will not be the same anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
ah...well that kind of requires a definition of 'artificial intelligence then'. Will AI fit on the EQ list, (Encephalization Quotient, along with dogs and cats and Ravens and everything else with a brain or something that they use as a brain?)
Is an AI sapient? Is it sentient? Must it be sentient To BE sapient?
Personally I don't think AI is possible for a very long time. Why? Because consciousness, awareness, is a result of programming. We might know how to build the machine, how to wire the circuits, but how do we program it? The right program has to be running before consciousness will emerge. Mind is an emergent property.
Wrg of The Singularity, "artificial intelligence" is anything that can enhance its own design. Consciousness or awareness is not a requirement.
Actually if you read Vernor Vinge's paper on the singularity, it is clear that he regards the development of artificial intelligence as one path among many that could take us to the Singularity. As well as AI there are scenarios involving cyborgs, with people adopting brain prosthetics that make them smarter (using those smarts to make improved prosthetics, among other things) and scenarios involving greater cooperation between human and machine networks. This latter scenario may not involve any general AI but lots and lots of narrow AI. With regard to this scenario, Vinge's wrote:
"Of all the items on the list, progress in this is proceeding the fastest. The power and influence of the Internet are vastly underestimated. The very anarchy of the worldwide net's development is evidence of its potential. As connectivity, bandwidth, archive size, and computer speed all increase, we are seeing something like Lynn Margulis' vision of the biosphere as data processor recapitulated, but at a million times greater speed and with millions of humanly intelligent agents (ourselves)".
I define the Singularity as 'using science and technology to create, or become, superhuman intelligence'.