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The Singularity
Basic Account, Created on 17 February 2006 (#9535237), Last updated on 19 May 2007 [Gift]
- 31 journal entries
- 82 comments received
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- a.i., accelerating change, advanced technology studies, ai, alan turing, algorithms, alife, apocolypse, artificial intelligence, artificial life, artificial neural networks, bill joy, biochemistry, biotechnology, borg, cloning, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, complex adaptive systems, complex systems, complexity theory, computer science, computers, consciousness uploading, cybernetics, cyberpunk, data mining, databases, distributed computing, emergent behavior, emulation, evolution, evolutionary computation, evolutionary computing, extropian, extropianism, extropians, finite state machines, fractals, future studies, futurism, game theory, genetic algorithms, genetic engineering, genetic modification, genetic programming, grid computing, immortality, information science, information theory, intelligent agents, intelligent machines, kurzweil, machine intelligence, mathematics, media, memes, memetics, mind uploading, moore's law, nanotechnology, natural language processing, networks, neural computer interfaces, neural nets, neural networks, neuropsychology, neuroscience, number theory, open source, pattern recognition, physics, ray kurzweil, robotics, robots, science, singularity, space travel, supercomputers, superintelligence, technology, the internet, the singularity, transhumanism, transhumanists, vernor vinge, voice recognition
- About
"Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended." -- Vernor Vinge, 1993
Everybody knows that times are a changin'. The social and technological changes that took place in the 20th century were huge compared to those of the 19th century. In the last 50 years computers have gone from room sized monsters that could perform hundreds of calculations per second to book sized devices that perform billions of calculations per second. Every year the pace of change seems to get faster.
Although many people know this, what most people don't realise is that if you do a careful analysis of how quickly things are changing what you discover is that the rate of change is exponential. That is, the rate at which things are changing is quickly increasing. If this trend continues, and many people believe that it will, then the implications for our future are profound. And we're not talking about the distant future either. If you thought the rise of mobile phone technology and the internet over the last ten years was big, the changes that will take place over the next ten years will dwarf that. And the ten years after that... that's when things will start to get really wild. At some point people simply won't be able to keep up with the rate of change anymore. That's the singularity.
Papers
The Coming Technological Singularity -- Vernor Vinge, 1993 (classic in the field)
How Long Before Superintelligence -- Nick Bostrom, 1997 (postscript 2005)
Books
The Spike -- Damien Broderick, 2002
On Intelligence -- Jeff Hawkins & Sandra Blakeslee, 2004 (theory of the human neocortex)
Universal Artificial Intelligence -- Marcus Hutter, 2004 (mathematical model of super intelligence)
The Singularity Is Near : When Humans Transcend Biology -- Ray Kurzweil, 2005
Video
Innovation Everywhere -- Ray Kurzweil, 2005
Building Gods -- Featuring Nick Bostrom, Kevin Warwick, Hugo de Garis and Anne Foerst. 2006
Audio
Keynote Presentation, Accelerating Change -- Vernor Vinge, 2005
Blogs
Michael Anissimv
michaelanissimv
Nick Bostrom
vetta project
Websites
Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence Network
The Singularity Institute
Acceleration Studies Foundation
There are other singularity focused communities on Live Journal. The difference with this community is that we take a strictly scientific perspective. No new age mysticism will be found here. That doesn't rule out posts about things like consciousness. However, such posts will need to be backed up by references to work which has been published in reputable scientific research journals. As the saying goes, if you want to make amazing claims, then you need amazing evidence.