Thread: The Technological Singularity Theory

Where did he get the 2050ish number from?

Have you ever chatted with a bot before? They're not so advanced. Even if they could get good enough to trick a human into thinking it's a person, it'd still just be automated responses and wouldn't signify self-awareness.

What is this theory anyway, I don't see how it's "technological singularity" it sounds more like it should be called the "terminator" theory from this youtube video.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

What is this theory anyway, I don't see how it's "technological singularity" it sounds more like it should be called the "terminator" theory from this youtube video.

I'd like to make a motion. I suggest we change the name to "skynet" theory.

yt doesn't work for me. Edit; seen it. It's got some of the right ideas but it's a pretty dumb video. The predictions it makes do not seem entirely founded, and I don't agree with the Turing test.

I'm personally open to the possibility of this occurring.

It's called a singularity because we essentially have exponential growth here; the more advanced we become, the greater the rate of advancement becomes.

There is definitely a clear pattern over history of shorter and shorter epochs. It's very easy to loose track of the big picture nowadays, and in fact most people are utterly pig ignorant of it. And even those who do know the general picture; in our materialistic and just generally stupid society I think it's quite easy to fall into the trap of thinking it's not real, but just a bunch of facts with no tangible existence anywhere other than a textbook... here they are anyway;

14,000,000,000 years ago we have the Big Bang.

5,000,000,000 years ago stars have formed and died giving rise to more complex heavy elements, some of which have gathered to form Earth and our solar system. Very basic life forms get started soon after. Only a long time after,

500,000,000 years ago (in the last tenth of the Earth's history) did we get complex organisms, and the diversification of the major phyla to what we see today.

2,500,000 years ago genus Homo emerges and the first tools are created.

15,000 years ago there is a sudden shift from a hunter-gatherer society to permamenent agricultural settlements.

5,000 years ago we have civilisation and a steady increase in basic technology, various arts, and rational thought.

200 years ago we have the industrial revolution and the true advent of the scientific method with Newton's Principia.

40 years ago the computer was created. Ever since, the computing power of society has doubled every 2 years.

In all honesty it's hard to argue against some sort of singularity when you see the big picture laid out like that, and realise that the entirity of the achievements of modern civilisation is a ridiculously miniscule blip (about 0.000004% of the lifetime of the Earth), and that Earth is going to be around for another 5,000,000,000 years or so.

so singularity means what exactly?

Originally Posted by tkdyo

so singularity means what exactly?

It's a reference to either the mathematical singularity, which most commonly refers to asymptotic growth, or the physics singularity, being a point in space with an event horizon beyond which nothing can be seen. A technological singularity is a point in technological planning beyond which the future evolution of technology is expected to be so explosive that no one can possibly predict the path technology, or the human race itself, will take. Practically speaking, it will be when paradigm shifts are only months apart instead of decades.

Yes, it's a bit vague. Here it basically means 'really fast growth'.

Technically it should refer to a geometric contraction; for example, if one 'step' occurs in 1 second, the next in 1/2 a second, the next in 1/4 of a second, and so on, as seems to be occuring at the moment, then the number of steps will tend to infinity as 2 seconds is approached. This seems unrealistic though; infinite growth is a physical impossibility.

ok, I see now. Well, I suppose that could happen at some point. Infact, relatively speaking havnt we reached technological singluarities before? I dont think when people first learned about electricity they thought we could connect the world with it.

The video is not the best explanation of this concept. You'd do better to just go to Kurzweil's site and read from their.

Originally Posted by drewmandan

Practically speaking, it will be when paradigm shifts are only months apart instead of decades.

Its been called a singularity because are current understanding of 'paradigm shifts' would be changing in instantaneous succession. They will be changing within months of each other before this happens.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Where did he get the 2050ish number from?

2050 is projected based on the double exponential growth of technological progress as charted up to this point.

Have you ever chatted with a bot before? They're not so advanced. Even if they could get good enough to trick a human into thinking it's a person, it'd still just be automated responses and wouldn't signify self-awareness.

Have you chatted with a bot recently? They have fooled child psychologists into thinking they are real human children.

What is this theory anyway, I don't see how it's "technological singularity" it sounds more like it should be called the "terminator" theory from this youtube video.

The theory is that based on the current rate of technological progression, the current rate of the acceleration of technological progression, and the rate of that; during the next 100 years, we may experience something along the lines of 200,000 times this years progression, and in 50 years or so we will reach a turning point at which we will progress beyond the ability of today's humans to understand it. It also predicts by then that we will be capable of merging with machines so that humanity at that time will most likely be able to understand it since our ability to understand will be vastly augmented by machine processing speed and information storage.

Kurzweil says that this will be the point that humans in todays strictest sense will no longer be necessary for the evolution of the planet earth as a whole, but that the future intelligence should still be considered human in a way since it is still the direct result of human intelligence and creativity.

Originally Posted by Xei

Yes, it's a bit vague. Here it basically means 'really fast growth'.

Technically it should refer to a geometric contraction; for example, if one 'step' occurs in 1 second, the next in 1/2 a second, the next in 1/4 of a second, and so on, as seems to be occuring at the moment, then the number of steps will tend to infinity as 2 seconds is approached. This seems unrealistic though; infinite growth is a physical impossibility.

Kurweil doesn't claim that it will ever reach infinity; as you say, that is impossible. He calls it a singularity because we will be past the point of human comprehension's ability to keep up with the change, so it might as well be infinite as far as we can currently imagine it. Perhaps in the month just before this singularity, we will go from having colonized the moon to having utilized every planet in the galaxy, and then what? We can't imagine it at this point.

1000 years ago the "world" didn't even exist, who knows what we'll find out about existence given a little time.

Maybe we'll find out the universe is shaped like this:

That's unlikely. We can see the life is actually quite likely to emerge, as it did so so fast after Earth became habitable. There must therefore be many advanced organisms in the galaxy, and approximately half will be a century ahead of us. However they're not here; nothing has happened. Therefore singularities don't happen or are limited in space... no?

Originally Posted by Xei

That's unlikely. We can see the life is actually quite likely to emerge, as it did so so fast after Earth became habitable. There must therefore be many advanced organisms in the galaxy, and approximately half will be a century [or more] ahead of us. However they're not here; nothing has happened. Therefore singularities don't happen or are limited in space... no?

No. This is just another version of Fermi's Paradox, which is incredibly naive. In the future, Fermi's Paradox will be seen as one of philosophy's greatest blunders.

The easiest way to dispel the paradox is to assume that light speed is never broken using some sort of wormhole or similar device. If that's true, the rarity of intelligent life as predicted by even an optimistic treatment of the Drake equation virtually guarantees that no life will come in contact with any other.

So basically your saying there are plenty of alien species that have already reached singularity.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

1000 years ago the "world" didn't even exist, who knows what we'll find out about existence given a little time.

Maybe we'll find out the universe is shaped like this:

It is, didn't you get the memo?

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

It is, didn't you get the memo?

That's the galaxy, I was talking about the universe.

And I was being serious, as anyone who's undergone a deeply mystical experience through psychedelics or otherwise can tell you.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

deeply mystical experience through psychedelics

Is this supposed to be a joke? I honestly can't tell.

Why must something either be a joke [or] serious?

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Why must something either be a joke [or] serious?

Actually, I didn't say anything about being serious.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Actually, I didn't say anything about being serious.

sly.

How do you have your mystical experiences anyway? Deep meditation for days on end? Pilgrimages to holy sites? Thanks but I prefer drugs.

No. This is just another version of Fermi's Paradox, which is incredibly naive. In the future, Fermi's Paradox will be seen as one of philosophy's greatest blunders.

The easiest way to dispel the paradox is to assume that light speed is never broken using some sort of wormhole or similar device. If that's true, the rarity of intelligent life as predicted by even an optimistic treatment of the Drake equation virtually guarantees that no life will come in contact with any other.

Hence why I said 'limited in space'.