What is the Singularity?
The technological Singularity is the idea that artificial superintelligence (AI) will eventually surpass human intellect and technological growth will rapidly increase. You may be wondering if the singularity could affect your future, and yes- it most definitely will. First of all, your professional life could be at risk. Machines with a conscience could do your job with no problem at all, and hundreds of times faster than you would. For example if you were a detective, a computer could look through criminal databases across the country in a matter of seconds and could look for certain patterns to help solve the case. Computers could take a photo of a person and look through all records of United States citizens in an instant and find who the person is.
Likelihood of the Singularity
The Singularity is very likely to happen, and very soon. Just last year, the Google Brain was able to formulate what was happening in most every given picture (article here). AI like this are starting to become legitimately conscious, and advancements to technology in this field are occurring each and every day. A man by the name of Ray Kurzweil, a scientist who focuses a lot on the idea of the Singularity has said that by 2020, we will have computers powerful enough to simulate the human brain. As you can see from the timeline (below), he has also predicted that in 2029, we will have reverse engineered every part of the human brain, and that the actual "Singularity" will occur by 2045.
Outcomes of the Singularity
The outcome of the Singularity is not necessarily bad. Of course the way I have been describing it, it sounds awful, but it is not all that bad. For example we could use AI to help with medicine and the medical field. A computer would be able to find symptoms, find the medical issue, and find a cure/treatment in a matter of seconds. Another application of AI that we could use in the future could be used in industries that require lots of heavy lifting. A robot (or a piece of technology of such a nature) could have the consciousness of a human to do a job that does not harm the health of humans.
Of course there are negatives to the Singularity as you could imagine. If machines become to intelligent and do not rely on humans, they can eventually become hostile to humans and inflict harm on the human race. This is crazy to think about, but it is not terribly unknown. It has been a major part of Science Fiction for years- robots taking over the world. Another negative outcome of the singularity is that, as I have said before, computers can end up taking over the majority of jobs in the world. A computer can do just as good of a job as human, if not better-- and they do not need to be paid. Of course these are not the only possible outcomes of the Singularity. There are virtually unlimited possible outcomes to this, but we won't know what will happen until it actually does. What do you think is going to happen when the Singularity occurs?
Of course there are negatives to the Singularity as you could imagine. If machines become to intelligent and do not rely on humans, they can eventually become hostile to humans and inflict harm on the human race. This is crazy to think about, but it is not terribly unknown. It has been a major part of Science Fiction for years- robots taking over the world. Another negative outcome of the singularity is that, as I have said before, computers can end up taking over the majority of jobs in the world. A computer can do just as good of a job as human, if not better-- and they do not need to be paid. Of course these are not the only possible outcomes of the Singularity. There are virtually unlimited possible outcomes to this, but we won't know what will happen until it actually does. What do you think is going to happen when the Singularity occurs?