The Singularity
The technological Singularity is an AI-intelligence explosion forecasted to hit in the year 2045. Ray Kurzweil predicts that AI will have retained all human knowledge and the abilities that come with it, easily exceeding the powers of the human brain. Any skill we learn, an AI will learn faster — even downloading skills from humans and other machines. We humans may think we’re impressive, but human thinking is slow and our processing bandwidth will be embarrassing in comparison to our new electronic friends. But no fear! This is where things get exciting.
Here’s what we’ll do: UPGRADE OURSELVES.
Evolution’s at hand! Molecule-size nanotechnology will allow us to manipulate and design our physical reality at the atomic level. Over the next few decades, Kurzweil believes we’ll shed our biological Human 1.0 bodies, and will emerge as a new version of human — Human 2.0’s (cyborgs). Nanobots will be used as brain extenders (replacing neural implants) to expand our memory powers, pattern-recog, and general cognition.
The machine portion of our intelligence will be billions of times more powerful than our biological human intelligence, eventually leading us to trade our semi-biological bodies for morphable nanobot-bodies (Human 3.0). The Singularity will bring changes that are so extreme, it could rupture the fabric of what it means to be human.
Post-Singularity, our species will have merged with computers. We’ll still be a version of human, just not biological.
So, what’s our destiny after the Singularity? According to John Smart, it’s living on the surface of a black hole, also known as Transcension.
To learn more about the Singularity, check out Kurzweil’s book, The Singularity is Near.