"Singularity: What is it?"

This is an email sent to me by my buddy, Jason M. Adams explaining Singularity (at my request). He is a very smart, thoughtful and trustworthy person in my experience over the past 9 years of knowing him. He blogs here: http://mendicantbug.com

"Singularity: What is it?" By Jason M. Adams

Singularity is the "technological singularity". A singularity in physics is a black hole, basically an end to time and space where both merge and become one or nothing or who knows what. So Kurzweil and vernor venge, two noted futurists and transhumanists, came up with this theory that as time progresses, the distance between life-altering breakthroughs is gradually getting shorter. At some point in the not-so-distant future, we'll reach a point where the distance between breakthroughs is in days or minutes. At this point, we will become something we can't even imagine, because we will be advancing so quickly. The theory is, the singularity will be achieved by a super-intelligent benevolent AI that will give mankind all the gifts that God has refused us.

It's horse shit.

the evidence is starting to suggest technological progress is slowing, not accelerating. we'll probably reach the end of our resources long before any of this, but if we don't, we'll probably max out the learning capacity of the brain to the point that further advancements come very slowly (sometime in the next 100-200 years).

If you're interested in other's who agree with Jason's rebuttal (he's not alone in his "horse shit" synopsis), check out any of the posts in this google search.