Technological singularity:Point from which a technological civilization suffers such acceleration of progress that causes the inability to predict its consequences.
The world we know is about to change until it is unrecognizable. It is not just the revolution that will bring a new technology, but something much bigger: the concentration of revolutions at such a rapid rate that we humans literally will not be able to assimilate: the technological singularity. That is the opinion shared by many of those who work today at the frontier of technology, and this is the story of their arrival.
Technological revolutionsIt is difficult to imagine a time when we did not have mobile phones to communicate with anyone at any time, or a time when we could not connect to the internet to find information. However it is very recent.
Technological revolutions used to arrive more spaced. Since the telegraphy was invented in the 1830s thanks to electricity, bringing about a social and economic revolution, it took 70 years until the telephone and radio shook everything again. Then about 40 until television arrived. Computers, networks, internet, mobiles ... every significant step has come with less time of difference.
Have you heard of Moore's Law? The number of transistors on a chip doubles in about two years (and with it its power), as Gordon Moore , co-founder of Intel , observed in the 1960s . But this is just an example of similar phenomena. Although the advances seem to come at random, the general behavior seems so predictable that some like Ray Kurzweil give it the character of law, the law of accelerated returns . If it continues like this, there will come a time when we have revolutions at a rate as frantic as from one day to another. A day in which we can never "keep up" and the lives of humans, as we know it, cannot continue.
Since the mathematician John von Neumann considered it seriously in the 50s, many people have thought about it, and they refer to that hypothetical moment with the name of technological singularity . Not everyone believes that something like this will happen, that these trends will follow. But experts who do expect it estimate that this time will come near 2050, only about 30 years in the future.
The explosion of intelligenceOne of the deepest advances has to do with how we design increasingly intelligent machines. Machines that increasingly deserve the qualification of "thinkers." Artificial intelligence (AI) is used today for a multitude of complex tasks, from internet searches to driving autonomous cars. Despite that, it is still very far from what we consider intelligent behavior for a human, a general problem-solving capacity. But this does not always have to be this way. What is known as general intelligence is a goal that, although distant, may be reached surprisingly fast thanks to the acceleration of technological revolutions.
Once we get to create a general AI, it will be able, among other things, to design even better AIs. And these in turn, better ones. A cycle of explosive increase in intelligence that would quickly leave ours at the height of bitumen: the arrival of an "artificial superintelligence."
This is for many authors, including Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge, which would characterize the uniqueness. It is the moment in which we lie down being the dominant species of the planet and when we wake up we discover that we have become obsolete. It is the end of the human era.
Does it sound dangerous? If you think so, you are not alone. Personalities such as physicist Stephen Hawking and entrepreneur Elon Musk have long been warning that the uncontrolled advance of AI is a serious problem for the future of humanity. The latter compares it even to "summon the devil." And confirming that the thing is not a joke, just a few weeks ago Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote that whoever becomes a leader in this area will control the world.
Beyond humansWhat will happen to us when the singularity arrives (if it arrives)? AIs may replace us as the dominant species. But also that we integrate those AIs into ourselves, becoming beings that go beyond what we are today.
We could be integrating more technology into our bodies. We already do it on a small scale with prostheses and pacemakers, and we could get to integrate electronics that in practice we would control “with thought”. Also, thanks to genetic engineering, we are better able to manipulate DNA at will, with which we are increasingly open the way to improve ourselves at the molecular level. Finally, we can use advances in nanotechnology to integrate tiny robots that improve the functions of our body.
This way in which humanity could become something else, greatly modifying the biological beings that we are thanks to technology, is what is known as transhumanism.
