WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BY SOLA BODUNRIN

THE SINGULARITY IS UPON US

The technological singularity (also referred to as the singularity) is a hypothetical point in the future when technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.

According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, called intelligence explosion, an up-gradable intelligent agent (such as a computer running software-based artificial general intelligence) would enter a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, with each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an intelligence explosion and resulting in a powerful super-intelligence that would, qualitatively and extremely surpass all human intelligence.

The only fear that many scientists have expressed, is that it may leave us immortal – or extinct. We can’t know for sure what path machines or humanity will take after the singularity. One rather bleak possibility is our extinction. How could that happen? It could be a simple mistake. Consider a medical artificial intelligence designed to eradicate cancers that decides that the best way to do so is to eliminate the host: humans. The movie "I Am Mother" even plays a little with this plausibility, killing off every human embryo that the protagonist super-robot finds unethical.

But it’s not all bleak. As legendary physicist Stephen Hawking has said, ‘the singularity could be the worst thing to happen to humanity, but it could also be the best’. That’s because it offers the tantalizing possibility of immortality. Transhumanists believe that the singularity will advance our understanding of the human brain so far that we will be able to achieve digital immortality as our bodies become temporary vessels for our digitalized minds, which will be stored in the cloud.

At present, we don’t understand enough about how the physical cells of the brain become our conscious mind for this to be achievable. But Hawking believes that the brain is essentially a computer, and that, therefore, it will be possible one day to copy it and provide life after death. And Ray Kurzweil has noted that in the future we will be able to send millions of nanobot scanners through each capillary of our brain to scan its every neural feature. Take into account the vast, rapid advances in nanotechnology, in artificial intelligence and in data analysis that the singularity would bring, and living as an immortal digital consciousness doesn’t seem so unlikely after all.

Today, we are essentially the same beings as our earliest ancestors who wandered the plains of Africa. After the singularity, everything will change. We will look on Homo sapiens and its intelligence as we today look back at Neanderthals. Ahead of us lies a great rupture in human existence and the possibility of a new, super-intelligent species. So for now, keep taking those vitamins.

For us to achieve this though, we need to have a set of ethical rules for artificial intelligence. These basic rules like the mosaic ten commandments will be looked into next week.

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments box provided below.

Have a fruitful day!

Olusola Bodunrin is a graduate of Philosophy from the University of Ado-Ekiti. He is a professional writer, he writes articles for publication and he anchors – ‘What You Should Know’ on SHEGZSABLEZS’ blog.

‘What You Should Know’ is a column that offers to educate and enlighten the public on general falsehood and myths