TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY HYPOTHESIS – REALITY OR MIRAGE?

Abstract

What is technological singularity hypothesis? The technological singularity is a theoretical future point of unprecedented technological progress, caused in part by the ability of machines to improve themselves using artificial intelligence[1] It refers to the "intelligence explosion" I.G. Good wrote, suggesting that if machines could even slightly surpass human intellect, they could improve their own designs in ways unforeseen by their designers, and thus recursively augment themselves into far greater intelligences. The first such improvements might be small, but as the machine became more intelligent it would become better at becoming more intelligent, which could lead to an exponential and quite sudden growth in intelligence. 

It was Vernor Vinge[9] that coined the word “Singularity" which he illustrated as an analogy between the breakdown of modern physics near a gravitational singularity and the drastic change in society which he argues would occur following an intelligence explosion. In the 1980s, Vinge popularized the singularity in lectures, essays, and science fiction. In recent times, prominent technologists such as Bill Joy[6], founder of Sun Microsystems, voiced concern over the potential dangers of Vinge's singularity (Joy, 2000 [2]). Following its introduction in Vinge's stories, particularly Marooned in Realtime and A Fire Upon the Deep, the singularity has also become a common plot element in science fiction in modern civilization. Ray Kurzweil, define the singularity as a period of extremely rapid technological progress. Kurzweil argues such an event is implied by a long-term pattern of accelerating change that generalizes Moore's Law to technologies predating the integrated circuit and which he argues will continue to other technologies not yet invented.