2. Singularity - The six epochs
1 - Physics and Chemistry
2 - Biology and DNA
3 - Brains
4 - Technology
5 - Merger of Human Technology with Human Intelligence
6 - The Universe Wakes Up
- Raymond Kurweil
3. Singularity - What is singularity ?
● Ability to augment our bodies and minds with
technology
● Technological creation of super-intelligence
● Combination of three important technologies
of the 21st century:
○ Genetics
○ Nanotechnology
○ Robotics
4. Singularity - Why will it happen ?
● Paradigm shift - change in the basic ideas
and assumptions
● Examples in social science:
○ Cognitive revolution
○ Keynesian revolution
○ Monetarism revolution
● As long as age advances, paradigm shifts
occur more frequently
6. Singularity - Why will it happen ?
● Moore's Law
○ Computational power doubles every two years
○ It will be possible to build ever more powerful machines
● The Law of Accelerating Returns
○ Extending Moore's Law to describe exponential
growth of diverse forms of technological progress
○ Technological progress happens exponentially, not
linearly
9. Singularity - Intelligence explosion
● Two ways to achieve superhuman
intelligence
○ Intelligence amplification
○ Artificial intelligence
● How to produce it ?
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○
○
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Bioengeneering
Genetic engeneering
AI assistants
Brain-Computer Interfaces
10. Singularity - Intelligence explosion
● How it will improve our intelligence?
○ Speed Improvements
○ Intelligence Improvements
● Cerebral processing power measurement
○ Can be measured by the number of computations in
a square inch multiplied by the area of the brain outdated
○ Quantum processing shows values are off by a
factor of a billion
11. Singularity - Intelligence explosion
● Exponential growth of Technology will
eventually surpass brain power
"Let an ultra-intelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass
all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of
machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra-intelligent machine
could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an
‘intelligence explosion,’ and the intelligence of man would be left far behind.
Thus the first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever
make."
- I. J. Good
12. Singularity - Technology Evolution
● Slow Growth Phase
● Rapid Growth Phase
● Leveling Off Phase
● Once a technology has reached maturity, it
is replaced by a newer, totally different
technology, meaning a paradigm shift
occurs.
13. Singularity - Economic Growth
● Paleolithic era until the Neolithic revolution
○ Doubles every 250,000 years
● Agricutural revolution
○ Doubles every 900 years
● Industrial revolution
○ Doubles every 15 years
● Singularity
○ Doubles 3 times per year (expected)
14. Singularity - Medical Improvements
● Nanobots will eventually be able to repair
and replace any part of the body that wears
out.
● Neural Implants for Parkinson patients
● Nanotechnology devices to cure DNA errors
(Cancer, Alzheimer, Down syndrome, etc...)
15. Singularity - Artificial Intelligence
● Computers that can drive cars(Google).
● Robots fighting alongside American troops.
● Computer viruses "cockroach intelligence".
16. Singularity - 2045: The Singularity
● $1000 buys a computer a billion times more powerful
than all human brains today.
● Artificial intelligences surpass human beings as the
smartest and most capable life forms on the Earth.
● The extermination of humanity by violent machines is
unlikely (though not impossible) because sharp
distinctions between man and machine will no longer
exist thanks to the existence of cybernetically enhanced
humans and uploaded humans.
A film by Raymond Kurweil, in theathers soon...
17. Singularity - Questions ?
"Ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human
life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in
the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not
continue."
- John von Neumann
"Once the machine thinking method has started, it would not take long to
outstrip our feeble powers. ... At some stage therefore we should have to
expect the machines to take control."
- Alan Touring
"We will soon create intelligences greater than our own. When this happens,
human history will have reached a kind of singularity, an intellectual transition
as impenetrable as the knotted space-time at the center of a black hole, and
the world will pass far beyond our understanding."
- Vernor Vinge
