Technological singularity

The technological singularity or tech singularity is the idea that a machine or computer, or a group of machines and computers, will one day be smarter than humans.

Because it has not happened yet, nobody really knows what the technological singularity will do, or if it will even happen. Nonetheless, the technological singularity has been a subject in many science fiction works, such as The Terminator, The Matrix, and the Borg in Star Trek. In most depictions of the singularity, machines have consciousness and humans are considered to be useless. The futurist (who studies about the future) and inventor Ray Kurzweil believes the Singularity will happen about the year 2045. The major impetus driving toward the singularity, according to Kurzweil, is that according to Moore's Law, computers are doubling in memory capacity every 18 months. According to Kurzweil, by 2029, computers will be as intelligent as human beings (see artificial intelligence).^[1]

Possible effects of such a singularity can include

• Human extinction or enslavement
• Mass unemployment, starvation, etc.
• A post-scarcity system
• Cybernetic immortality
• Mind uploading

Etc.

Related pages

• Cybernetics
• Emerging technologies
• Innovation