Technological Singularity, a Grandiose Dream: A Would-Be Glorious Achievement for Its Proponents, but an Idea Eliciting Second Thoughts from the Sceptic

Abstract

La version francaise de cet article peut etre consultee a: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2983326 Technological singularity or simply singularity is an umbrella term that regroups advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) or super artificial intelligence (SAI), rise of machines, and eventually the demise of humanity by the same machines it created. John von Neumann was the first to coin the term in 1958. As to when exactly it will happen, scholars don’t seem to speak with one voice. In the years following the advent of the Internet and computers, as more and more technological advances were being made, they tended to push the dates forward, anywhere between the 90’s to 2000’s. Ray Kurzweil predicts the singularity to occur around 2045 whereas Vernor Vinge predicts some time before 2030. Knowing what technological singularity entails, these dates are obviously too close to be realistic. In less than 30 years – from the 1990’s to present day, we went from archaic ways to communicate, shop, listen to music, etc. to state of the art methods of interacting with each other and entertaining ourselves all right. But we’re still here to enjoy and regularly improve these technologies based on our know-how, our tastes, and our whims. Technological singularity is a whole different play field involving non-human political, economic, and social actors. Humans, are, by nature, selfish, individualistic, and happiness-driven. These characteristics are what stands between the glorious dream and the potential glorious achievement, which technological singularity is.