In layman’s terms, technological singularity is a theory that technology will accelerate at an unbelievably fast pace, so fast that the future will be unpredictable, unimaginable, and completely different than the way things are today. Of course there is much more to it, but this set of articles is just an introduction.

In his book “The Singularity is Near,” Ray Kurzweil states that technological evolution follows a pattern of exponential growth. This means that technological growth is multiplied, rather than simply added. In a nutshell, exponential growth means that progress starts out slowly, then slowly gets faster. The progress gets multiplied by further progress, which hurls advancement into an extremely fast pace. The more time that goes by, the faster things change.

History shows us a key lesson about exponential growth. The economy more or less doubled every 250,000 years from the Paleolithic era until the Neolithic Revolution after some sort of technological innovation. After this, agricultural economy started to double every 900 years. In today’s day and age, after the technology that came with the Industrial Revolution, the world’s economic output doubles every fifteen years.

That’s a remarkable increase! If you just ponder it for a minute, it is difficult not to agree with exponential growth. Consider the rate at which much technology accelerates in a year today, and compare that to how much technology accelerated in any year in the 1950’s.

Yet although technology seems to be getting faster and faster, humans can’t seem to keep up. After all, although the human brain has evolved, it hasn’t changed in any major way for millennia. Keeping in mind the increasing power of technologies and computers, it no longer seems so far fetched that a machine could be built that is smarter than human beings. In theory, if it were possible for humans to construct a machine that had better problem solving skills than humans, and was more intelligent, then this machine could take it upon itself to design an even smarter machine. Then if this smarter machine was built, it could design a machine even smarter than itself, and so forth and so on. To be continued in the next article of this set, “How Could Humans Build A Computer That Is Smarter Than Them?

Mallory Megan works for Rapid Recovery Solution and writes articles on commercial collection agencies. Also published at Can Humans Keep Up With Computers? Technological Singularity.

So what would take place if we ever did design computers that were more intelligent than us? Would human beings be rendered obsolete? Could humans and computers ever develop some sort of understanding? Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov was one of the first people to propose safety precautions for AI with his “Three Laws of Robotics.” The first law the computers must follow is that a robot may not injure a human being or let a human being get hurt through inaction. The second law is that robots have to comply with the orders given to it by humans, except when these orders would conflict with the first rule. And the third law is that a robot must protect its own existence as long as doing so doesn’t conflict with the first or second law. Of course, things don’t go down that smoothly in Asimov’s fiction.

Some theorists take the gloomy view that artificial intelligences will just have goals that are inconsistent with human survival and goodwill, and that they will eventually terminate the human race. Others believe that it is just impossible to tell – computers are too different from humans. Humans are founded on evolution, thus they give birth to children, and experience emotions like love, fear, and anger. Computers would have no need for any of these traits.

Other scientists still assert that even though the faster, more intelligent computers may make the human brain obsolete as far as the superior intellect, there will still be ecological space for humans. Still, the idea of not being at the top of the pecking order seems uncomfortable.

A number of scientists in the field propose that we put research into how to make “friendly artificial intelligence” to address the dangers of, oh, being completely annihilated by a race of super machines. They postulate if the first AI was programmed to be friendly with humans, it would design other, smarter computers to be friendly as well and this could prevent any harmful AI from developing. It might just be worth our while!

In fact, in 2009, a number of researchers, experts, and analysts met in California to speak about the hypothetical ramifications of self sufficient robots that may be able to make their own decisions. At this meeting, they talked about how these computers and robots might be able to acquire autonomy, and to what degree they could use these abilities to pose threats. Again, military computers have the ability to choose targets to attack with weapons, and even something as simple as your every day computer virus can evade getting caught by us “smarter” humans. To be continued in the next article, “Criticisms of Technological Singularity And Exponential Growth.

Mallory Megan works for Rapid Recovery Solution and writes articles on nationwide collection agencies. This article, What Happens After We Build Computers That Can Outsmart Us? is released under a creative commons attribution licence.

In this set of articles I described the idea of technological singularity. This prediction asserts that progress in technology starts very slowly at first, then grows faster and faster. Eventually, technology will progress so quickly that the future will be completely unimaginable and different than it is today. Proponents of this theory say that change is occurring so rapidly in today’s day and age that by 2024 there will be computers out there that are just as intelligent and capable of the human brain!

Of course, not everyone believes that the singularity is a feasible prediction. First of all, a number of people feel that no computer or machine will ever be capable of being as intelligent as a human being in the first place. Others argue with the theory of exponential growth, that in actuality, the rate of technological innovation is actually now declining rather than rapidly increasing. Some critics don’t dispute that there is exponential growth, but feel as though it is not an adequate predictor of change. They are quick to point to the example of quantum theory. The quantum was conceived in 1900, and theory existed and was accepted around twenty five years later. But it took more than forty years to yield any meaningful numbers from the theory.

One very intriguing argument against technological singularity is a study of patents per thousand persons over the course of the years. The number of patents actually peaked in the years from 1850-1900, and has been on the decline since. The critics that adhere to this argument claim that as complexity grows, the more limited things become, and humans are growing less and less creative as a result. So the chances of human beings designing a supercomputer seems slim to none from this stance.

Finally, critics specifically find problems with the main proponent of the singularity theory, Ray Kurzweil’s chart of progress. Kurzweil bases his theory that technology is progressing faster and faster on these charts. In his book “The Singularity is Near” Kurzweil provides fifteen charts of the history of human evolution from various experts and sources, all pointing to the fact that change occurs slowly at first, then gets faster as the gaps between moments of progress get smaller and smaller. Some critics claim that a chart that is set up like this is simply biased towards proving what he sets forth to claim, others say that many of the early evolutionary events on these charts appear to be chosen arbitrarily.

Whether you agree with the idea of technological singularity or not, there is no denying that it is indeed a very fascinating concept to ponder. Are computers the next step in evolution? Is it simply typical human hubris to believe that we will always be on the top of the food chain? These are all ideas that will become more and more prevalent as the years go by and technology progresses.

Mallory Megan works for Rapid Recovery Solution and writes articles on credit collection agencies. Free reprint avaialable from: Critics Of Technological Singularity And Exponential Growth.