Vernor Vinge’s Latest Ideas About The Singularity In Ieee Spectrum

These systems could probably deploy the raw computational capability needed to simulate the firing patterns for all of a brain’s neurons, though currently it happens many times more slowly than would happen in an actual brain. Not much, if we’re searching only for microbial extraterrestrial life. But it might have a drastic impact on the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life .

The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. Before artificial intelligence becomes a reality, someone will have to develop software that will allow a machine to analyze data, make decisions and act autonomously. If that happens, we can expect to see machines begin to design and build even better machines.

Berglas claims that there is no direct evolutionary motivation for an AI to be friendly to humans. Anders Sandberg has also elaborated on this scenario, addressing various common counter-arguments. AI researcher Hugo de Garis suggests that artificial intelligences may simply eliminate the human race for access to scarce resources, and humans would be powerless to stop them. Alternatively, AIs developed under evolutionary pressure to promote their own survival could outcompete humanity. A 2017 email survey of authors with publications at the 2015 NeurIPS and ICML machine learning conferences asked about the chance of an intelligence explosion.

Now they saw that their most diligent extrapolations resulted in the unknowable . Biological science may provide means to improve natural human intellect. I also reserve the right to publicly post any solicitations I receive regarding this blog or any article therein. To offset the hosting and operating costs of this site, this site’s owner is a member of the Amazon Associates program and eBay Partner Network. Links directing you to Amazon or eBay product or search result pages may be affiliate links for which I may earn a commission when a purchase is made.

We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. For example, even the best machine analyzing existing data will probably not be able to find a cure for cancer. It will need to run experiments and analyze results to discover new knowledge in most areas.

Instead, scientific advances are often irregular, with unpredictable flashes of insight punctuating the slow grind-it-out lab work of creating and testing theories that can fit with experimental observations. Truly significant conceptual breakthroughs don’t arrive when predicted, and every so often new scientific paradigms sweep through the field and cause scientists to reëvaluate portions of what they thought they had settled. We see this in neuroscience with the discovery of long-term potentiation, the columnar organization of cortical areas, and neuroplasticity. These kinds of fundamental shifts don’t support the overall Moore’s Law-style acceleration needed to get to the singularity on Kurzweil’s schedule. Futurists like Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil have argued that the world is rapidly approaching a tipping point, where the accelerating pace of smarter and smarter machines will soon outrun all human capabilities.