Technological Singularity

[Num7]

Loopi posted this in the What humans may look like in a million years. I didn't happen to think about that possibility before. I'm wondering how likely it is to happen, and if so, how soon.

Here's the article on Wikipedia: Technological singularity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The technological singularity is the theoretical emergence of superintelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities of such intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the technological singularity is seen as an occurrence beyond which events cannot be predicted.
Proponents of the singularity typically postulate an "intelligence explosion", where superintelligences design successive generations of increasingly powerful minds, might occur very quickly and might not stop until the agent's cognitive abilities greatly surpass that of any human.

Imagine that we create a massively intelligent computer, and that this very computer is able to create an improved version of itself. Then the new one creates another new computer a hundred times more powerful than it. It continues that way until those computer's AI are a billion times more powerful than our brain could possibly be (perhaps it never stops, you tell me!).

What happens then? We, mortals couldn't figure out a mere 0.0001% of what that freaking awesome, beyond imagination computer could possibly come up with. I doubt they'll want to keep us around.

That's kind of mind blowing.

 

[Samstwitch]

Wouldn't that be along the lines of the Terminator movies? Machines vs. humans

 

[Loopi]

It would probably end up more like the Borg where it's a collective Hive type of "being" either way i don't think it'll pan out well for anyone. lol

 

[TimeTravel_00]

This is exactly what humans will look like in a million years if we are still around. Were going to forget all about our electronic silicon gizmo gadgets as soon as the next Carrington Event hits the planet. No offense to Mr. Tesla or Mr. Edison, but cell phonse don't build 6 pack abs.

 

[Num7]

Terminator movies were more along the lines of sentient computers, rather than a massively intelligent AI. The computers in the Terminator franchise figured out that humans were a treat that should therefore be eliminated. They don't appear to have any master plan or some kind of superior motives outside of the destruction of the human race. We can suppose they have, but nothing was ever mentioned about it (In the movies. I didn't see the series.). Same with The Matrix.

I believe that the Borg may be a good example. All the drone's brains are used as calculating machines together, every single one of them. Billions of them make what is one of the Star Trek Universe's more powerful computer. (Let's not forget V'Ger though!)

 

[Samstwitch]

Ah, I see. Thanks for that explanation.

 

[TimeTravel_00]

Wouldn't microchip based beings and cyborgs die during a Carrington event, or the electro magnetic pulse associated with the detonation of nuclear war heads?

 

[Num7]

Just found this article about the same subject, suggesting that the technological singularity is likely, so to speak, to take place around 2045.

Humans Fully Outsourced to Robots by 2045?  | Old-Thinker News

Discussion of the “Singularity” — the moment when computer intelligence surpasses that of humans to such an extent that humans become practically redundant — has been gaining steam across the media spectrum. Ray Kurzweil pointed to 2045 as the date of this tipping point, after which anyone unprepared for merging with machines would likely face a very unproductive personal future.

 

[Samuel]

I have been Interested in the singularity for many years. One thing that has always bugged me is that most ET seem to low tech given what is forecasted by singularity futurists. It also seems that remote viewers and time travelers have very little to say about radical future technology and
Life extension.

 

[Num7]

Hmm, I never thought about that point before.

ET races apt at intergalactic space travel: Did they reach the technological singularity? I'd say that they very likely did. Perhaps they were able to keep up with it and let it evolve in a way that their massively intelligent AIs are fully benevolent and totally under control.

Perhaps the ETs are not even using technology the way we are, which could make it so that a technological singularity as we know it couldn't possible happen in their evolution. What about that? I assume that such technology is made of concepts we can't possibly grasp, by the way.