Technological Singularity

I was stumbling round the internet and came across the wiki entry for this idea: Technological Singularity wiki

For anyone that doesn't know, the idea is basically that we create intelligence superior to normal human intelligence, and it in turn will create something more intelligent than it, and the ever increasing speed at which this will happen will mean technological change on a level that makes the industrial revolution look trivial.

Been reading and watching everything I can find on the topic since, especially the stuff Ray Kurzweil's been doing. The thing is normally when I find out something like this I go mad researching it and eventually find out that it's probably not going to happen and get really dissapointed. This time I can't seem to find anything that seriously disputes the idea, and the more I think about it the more it seems completely inevitable.

The weird thing is that it doesn't seem to be that huge of a thing right now, doesn't seem like too many people are interested in it. I searched WATMM expecting to join a thread about this and there's barely any mention at all. I don't understand why this isn't front page news blowing minds the world across... Supposedly there's a film coming out about Kurzweil this year, I guess maybe that will bring it into the spotlight.

The way this comes across to me is that at some point in our life, we will stop the slow evolution of technology and just get straight to the best solutions. Like instead of debating whether resources should be put into solar or nuclear power, the machine will just instantly give us the most efficient form of power possible.

If anyone has an hour to spare: Ray Kurzweil chats about some of the ideas

I'm also finding this a bit bittersweet because I had this thought myself about 5 years ago, and kind of thought I was being original and clever...

Then I found the Asimov story The Last Question, and see that he was talking about this like 50 years ago. wow

Flashpoint

Don't worry, some guy called Neo will save us from the singularity.

Yeah, i talked about it a few times on here but no-ones too bothered i think. There is a fair bit of opposition too it though, check http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/

life and everything doesn't accelerate at a constant even rate, it's moving exponentially. that's what this is saying, right?

im reading about out of place artifacts right now. some pretty out of control stuff.

wikipedia is some serious panic-inducing shit. reading about the the nine unknown. fun stuff like that.

  Rambo said:

Yeah, i talked about it a few times on here but no-ones too bothered i think. There is a fair bit of opposition too it though, check http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/

I really hope this doesn't burst my bubble

edit.

  cornelius (aka ben) said:

life and everything doesn't accelerate at a constant even rate, it's moving exponentially. that's what this is saying, right?

yes, and it's sneaky as fuck.

we wont know for sure whether Kurzweil is right for another 10 years though unfortunately. If his charts are correct, by that point the progress will be too quick to dismiss.

Personally I believe the continuation of 'humanity' in the next 1000 years will be solely based within an artificial intelligence. You know, like the satellite in that Star Trek film. The Voyage Home. There'll be a sentient life-form, evolved from the human mind, travelling the cosmos.

Bodies are old hat. The real question is; if such an intelligence exists within our lifetime will you upload your knowledge to it?

  blutac said:

  Rambo said:

Yeah, i talked about it a few times on here but no-ones too bothered i think. There is a fair bit of opposition too it though, check http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/

 

I really hope this doesn't burst my bubble

It will if you want definite answers because we'll never get everyone to agree. There's always going to be opposition to something as wacky as this.

The rejection of the idea that I'm reading on that site is based around the idea that:

"I’d argue that I have seen less technological progress than my parents did, let alone my grandparents"

so I'm not going to be taking it too seriously

SOLID STATE ENTITY...OOOoooooOooOOO

  Quote

According to Lilly, the network of computation-capable solid state systems (electronics) engineered by humans will eventually develop (or has already developed) into an autonomous life-form. Since the optimal survival conditions for this life-form (low-temperature vacuum) are drastically different from those needed by humans (room temperature aerial atmosphere and adequate water supply), Lilly predicted (or "prophesied", based on his ketamine-induced visions) a dramatic conflict between the two forms of intelligence.

ray kurzweil's theories are like poop jokes -- entertaining, but not something to be taken seriously.

  Yegg said:

SOLID STATE ENTITY...OOOoooooOooOOO

 

  Quote

According to Lilly, the network of computation-capable solid state systems (electronics) engineered by humans will eventually develop (or has already developed) into an autonomous life-form. Since the optimal survival conditions for this life-form (low-temperature vacuum) are drastically different from those needed by humans (room temperature aerial atmosphere and adequate water supply), Lilly predicted (or "prophesied", based on his ketamine-induced visions) a dramatic conflict between the two forms of intelligence.

Lilly's an example of finding out something cool then being dissapointed. Got really into the whole isolation tank thing, then found out he was basically a massive ket head who spent most of his career trying to bridge the language gap of humans and dolphins...

  blutac said:

The rejection of the idea that I'm reading on that site is based around the idea that:

 

"I’d argue that I have seen less technological progress than my parents did, let alone my grandparents"

 

so I'm not going to be taking it too seriously

nah there's loads of different views on there give it a chance. By the way im not in the nay camp, if i had to bet, i'd bet on it happening. Even without a singularity, progress is going to speed up massively either way. A singularity would be bonkers whereas a future without one would merely be star trekish.

  hahathhat said:

ray kurzweil's theories are like poop jokes -- entertaining, but not something to be taken seriously.

depends who you ask though.

  hahathhat said:

ray kurzweil's theories are like poop jokes -- entertaining, but not something to be taken seriously.

He should have stuck to making synths.

I can't wait for the future. It almost seems a shame I have to spend so much of my life in the present...

I need to sleep I have work in 5 hours.

On a sunday. boo hoo

That IEEE website looks like a goldmine might have to session it tomorrow night

  chenGOD said:

  hahathhat said:

ray kurzweil's theories are like poop jokes -- entertaining, but not something to be taken seriously.

 

He should have stuck to making synths.

technologically he's all there -- that book reading machine was cool too

edit: ok, yeah, i'll elaborate. with futurism, you only have to get a few things right to make a name for yourself. you can get loads of stuff wrong, but still get accolades for the random shit that did come true... gambler's memory. so the trick is, predict a lot of things. ray kurzweil understands this. the other thing ray kurzweil understands is how to entertain the media.

Hive-mind.

Sooner or later we'll amalgamate into a single being, perhaps.

  cornelius (aka ben) said:

life and everything doesn't accelerate at a constant even rate, it's moving exponentially. that's what this is saying, right?

also,

http://singularity.com/charts/page17.html

  Gary C said:

Hive-mind.

 

Sooner or later we'll amalgamate into a single being, perhaps.

i refuse to share the same hive mind with with [hated forum member].

I'm sorry, what, Ha That Hat?

I don't think the advance will come not from technological means but from bio-mechanical developents. Genetic design, bigger brains and a better understanding of how we work and how we can work better. Thats the future, once we step outside the laws of evolution we've cracked it. Man will decide his own existence, the possibilities are endless.

It seems far more comprehendable than machines thinking. The brain is the most powerful and complex device we know. Lets work with that.

this hive mind ain't [big|smart|dumb|plastic] enough for the two of us

  Gary C said:

Hive-mind.

 

Sooner or later we'll amalgamate into a single being, perhaps.

It all seems to be pointing in that direction. All these little incremental steps are taking us there.

When i think of the whole Big Brother thing and privacy this seems to be balancing it out for me these days. Like, we'll always want this technology that's going to bring us closer and closer together with less and less privacy.

Just for example - something like nanoscale monitors inside your body keeping track of your health (heart etc). Which can warn you and the nearest ambulance station if something is up. People are going to want these things. There's going to be 2 sides to a lot of this tech and i actually don't see a problem with it in principle. It all boils down to the intentions of the people who are in power not the tech itself.