Technological singularity

Futures studies
Concepts
Accelerating change Cashless society Global catastrophic risk Future Earth Mathematics Race Climate Space exploration Universe Historical materialism Kondratiev wave Kardashev scale Moore's law Peak oil Population cycle Resource depletion Singularity Swanson's law
Techniques
Backcasting Causal layered analysis Chain-linked model Consensus forecast Cross impact analysis Delphi Real-time Delphi Foresight Future-proof Futures wheel Future workshop Horizon scanning Reference class forecasting Scenario planning Systems analysis Threatcasting Trend analysis
Technology assessment and forecasting
Critical design Design fiction Exploratory engineering FTA Hype cycle Science fiction prototyping Speculative design TRL Technology scouting
Related topics
Futarchy Transhumanism
v t e

The technological singularity—or simply the singularity^[1]—is a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization.^[2][3] According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, I. J. Good's intelligence explosion model of 1965, an upgradable intelligent agent could eventually enter a positive feedback loop of successive self-improvement cycles; more intelligent generations would appear more and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase ("explosion") in intelligence that culminates in a powerful superintelligence, far surpassing all human intelligence.^[4]

Some scientists, including Stephen Hawking, have expressed concern that artificial superintelligence (ASI) could result in human extinction.^[5][6] The consequences of a technological singularity and its potential benefit or harm to the human race have been intensely debated.

Prominent technologists and academics dispute the plausibility of a technological singularity and associated artificial intelligence explosion, including Paul Allen,^[7] Jeff Hawkins,^[8] John Holland, Jaron Lanier, Steven Pinker,^[8] Theodore Modis,^[9] Gordon Moore,^[8] and Roger Penrose.^[10] One claim is that artificial intelligence growth is likely to run into decreasing returns instead of accelerating ones. Stuart J. Russell and Peter Norvig observe that in the history of technology, improvement in a particular area tends to follow an S curve: it begins with accelerating improvement, but it eventually begins to level off (without continuing upward into a hyperbolic singularity).^[11] Consider, for example, the history of transportation, which experienced exponential improvement from 1820 to 1970, but then abruptly leveled off. Predictions based on continued exponential improvement (e.g. interplanetary travel by 2000) proved to be false.