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Singularity

Last Updated: Monday, 20-Apr-2015 19:51:36 PDT

Singularity - Sometimes referred to as "The Singularity"

"The postulated point or short period in our future when our self-guided evolutionary development accelerates enormously (powered by nanotechnology, neuroscience, AI, and perhaps uploading) so that nothing beyond that time can reliably be conceived." Anders Sandberg.

Some 20 to 140 years from now—depending on which evolutionary or systems theorist, computer scientist, technology studies scholar, or futurist you happen to agree with—the rate of self-catalyzing, self-organizing, ever more autonomous (human-independent) technological change in our local environment will undergo a "singularity," becoming effectively instantaneous from the perspective of current biological humanity. It has been postulated that events after this point must also be "future-incomprehensible" to existing humanity, though we disagree. Singularity Watch

Our definition: When technology advances to the stage that we can no longer predict the ramifications. The time when social, political, cultural, technical, and/or religious preconceptions no longer apply. The break between what we know and what we cannot fathom. An event--or events--that cause massive change in the very fabric of our human-ness. Generally thought to foreshadow across-the-board positive changes, yielding many advances in science, longevity, survival of the species, social responsibility, and the like. Also considered evolutionary -- as in the next stage of human development.

See also the Singularitarian Lexicon

  Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence

The Singularity: A Talk With Ray Kurzweil From Edge, March 25, 2002. 6,700 words. Video available as well.

The Technological Singularity By Vernor Vinge

The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era - Vernor Vinge - 1993

A Critical Discussion of Vinge's Singularity Concept Robin Hanson, Singularity Discussion Editor.

The Singularity Is Near - Ray Kurzweil
Video of Keynote talk at Extropy Institute's EXTRO-5 conference in San Jose, June 15 2001
once in, click on "The Singularity Is Near - Ray Kurzweil at Extro5 "

The Law of Accelerating Returns Ray Kurzweil

The Singularity Anders Sandberg

Interview with John Smart by Sander Olson

SingularityWatch
"...understanding and evaluating the coming technological singularity."

Tearing Toward the Spike by Damien Broderick

Excerpts from The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed By Rapidly Advancing Technologies by Damien Broderick

The world will get weirder, the end of the human era
Interview with Science fiction writer and cultural theorist, Damien Broderick

John Robb's Singularity site

Staring into the Singularity 1.2.5 If computing speeds double every two years, what happens when computer-based AIs are doing the research?
From The Low Beyond by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky

Future Shock Levels by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. A Shock Level measures the high-tech concepts you can contemplate without being impressed, frightened, blindly enthusiastic - without exhibiting future shock. Shock Level Zero or SL0, for example, is modern technology and the modern-day world, SL1 is virtual reality or an ecommerce-based economy, SL2 is interstellar travel, medical immortality or genetic engineering, SL3 is nanotech or human-equivalent AI, and SL4 is the Singularity.

Surviving the Singularity
by Steve Alan Edwards. Five interviews.

Accelerating Future