What is the “Technological Singularity” Hypothesis?
The “technological singularity” is a phrase used by lay futurists and technology scholars since Vernor Vinge’s essay, “The Coming Technological Singularity,” 1993, to describe hypothetical scenarios for the emergence of greater-than-human computational intelligence in the foreseeable future. In science, a singularity is a type of phase change, a special physical environment where new physical properties and capacities emerge, with dynamics described by new types of laws that can’t be fully understood from a pre-singularity perspective. The emergence of human consciousness was one such (human culture) singularity: note that the laws, perceptions, and ethics that accompany human culture cannot be directly understood from the perspective of non-human animal species. The gradual emergence of self-aware computers in coming decades may create another such (technological) singularity, bringing entirely new forms of intelligence and interdependence into the world. To what extent are we present
