The Singularity Revisited

by Pa Rock
Burgeoning Futurist

Yesterday evening as I was wading the Amazon searching for a particular book, I came across a blurb that mentioned "The Singularity."   With each passing year I seem to forget more than I learn, so it was with some astonishment that I realized that not only had I once been exposed to that particular term sometime in the distant past, but that I also seemed to remember what it meant.

If memory served, "the singularity" referred to a time in the not too distant future when machines would be able to program and control themselves, without benefit of human assistance.  I had read a magazine article on the subject sometime during the two years that I was working on Okinawa (2010-2012), and not long after I was counseling a young serviceman who was reading a book on the subject of "the singularity," and we spent some time talking about all that he was learning on the topic.

This morning I dug back through The Ramble and discovered that I had even posted a piece on the blog about the futurist concept on February 12, 2011.  That brief posting discussed the concept of artificial intelligence and noted that scholars were predicting that by the year 2045 technology will have reached a point where machines will be able to begin programming themselves and pursuing their own agendas.  At that point there will literally be knowledge explosions as machines increase their speed and accuracy based on their own inputs, and humans will begin becoming more and more irrelevant.  

Humans will have set the stage for solving all of the world's problems through unleashed technology - and/or humans, chief among the world's problems, will have brought about their own demise.

In doing more review on the topic this morning, I learned that the theory that machines will soon be able to program and control themselves in still accepted as valid, and that the anticipated date for this ascension of technology over humanity is still thought to be around 2045.  

It's doubtful that I will be around for this quantum leap into the abyss of the unknown, but all of my grandchildren should be.

And Pa Rock wishes them relevance in that brave new world - and luck!