by frog
I thought I would kick off the weekend with a topic that is sure to challenge the imagination and bring all sorts of ideas – good and crazy – out into the open.
So just what is The Singularity? The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI) describes it thus:
The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence.
Combine faster intelligence, smarter intelligence, and recursively self-improving intelligence, and the result is an event so huge that there are no metaphors left. There’s nothing remaining to compare it to.
The Singularity is beyond huge, but it can begin with something small. If one smarter-than-human intelligence exists, that mind will find it easier to create still smarter minds.
In the coming decades, humanity will likely create a powerful artificial intelligence. The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI) exists to confront this urgent challenge, both the opportunity and the risk.
Intrigued? I have been casually following this topic since the heady days of my youth were filled with the science fiction of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, to name just a few. However, what was once just science fiction is getting closer and closer to a reality.
The term was coined by Vernor Vinge in 1993, in an essay entitled The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era. It gave a popular label to the concept of an “intelligence explosion” initially espoused by I.J. Good. Since then, an entire industry has sprung up around the idea, with annual conferences and special issues of magazines devoted to the topic.
I could go on and on about the critics, the supporters and the likelihood of it happening in my lifetime. Seeing as this is a green blog, the real question is what impact this will have on the environment and the society we live in, given the huge challenges that we face in our own lifetime. After all, even the International Energy Agency now concedes that anyone under the age of 45 will probably live to create and see the post oil civilisation. The times they are a’changin’! I can’t think of a more exciting time to be alive.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Environment & Resource Management | Society & Culture by frog on Sat, November 29th, 2008
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Frog
Do you remember Asimov’s shortest short story?
If you do, ’nuff said!
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PS I think you might find that E.E.(Doc) Smith was first when he referred to “the singularity in the lens”. the grey lensman series.
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We were meant to have HAL by 2001, but I think we are still quite a long way from achieving that sort of intelligence.
I doubt if we can predict what the effect of such technology (AI) will be; we’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out.
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Methinks the car industry is already half way there. The average car contains more intelligence than the average driver.
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I spent far too much time reading about all of this back when I was 13-14. What I was far more interested in was how artificial intelligence would combine with natural intelligence rather than whether that artificial intelligence would be created. I’m waiting for the day when people can travel across the internet.
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MichaelT
>>
What I was far more interested in was how artificial intelligence would combine with natural intelligence
>>
Ooooooo
The Robot Series. I think R.Daniel didn’t make it, but the one known as The Millenium Man did! UNless you mean cynorgs that is??!
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Sorry cyBorgs – slip of the middle digit – wouldn’t happen if winwows 32767 worked consistently. Damned Microcorp!
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Dave S, no, I don’t remember reading that. I was just always averse to the idea that we should aim to create a species better than ourselves. I preferred the idea that we’d make ourselves into that better species.
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MichaelT
Good on ya.
The Robot Series converged with the Foundation Series after being separate for over 30 years, and brought out many interesting aspects of Asimov’s vision. Perhaps most striking was the development of the mind to use the vast resources it contains that are virtually not used at all today – perhaps the making ourselves into that better species that you talk of.
Anyway. Happy Sunday to you, I hope your weather is as delightful as mine right now, viva wireless networking and sun-loungers
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Seeing as this is a green blog, the real question is what impact this will have on the environment
Two obvious options: one, Earth will return to nature as we all decide to live in computers rather than in the meat. Or two, there won’t be one, because those trees and plants and giant carnivorous snails are matter which could be turned into computronium to run AIs and other people on (and besides, we can duplicate it all infinitely in virtuality anyway). Assuming we don’t all eat ourselves with grey goo, that is.
Charles Stross’s Accelerando has a nice look at what a Singularity might look like, and its not pretty. I’m inclined to agree with him (and the rest of the Scots Trots SF clique) that weakly godlike entities who live in computers are about as likely to care for people and things which don’t as the Great Old Ones are.
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