Singularity 101

[andrewducker]

Over here Vernor Vinge talks about The Singularity. His personal definition is:
Humans, using technology, will be able to create, or become, creatures of superhuman intelligence.
[Poll #1390606]

Comments

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Bit hit-and-run, which is annoying for a controversial answer, but I'd say we're already well past the Singularity.

With the aid of technology, we can already perform feats of superhuman intelligence and do so the whole time.

Focusing on whether computers are as (or more) intelligent like humans is silly. It's like trying to decide whether individual cell organelles are alive or not. It's a pointless question: the interesting phenomena in those terms are a level or two of description up from there.

To take one domain I happen to know well: no unaided human could conceivably sequence a single gene or elucidate a single protein structure. But nowadays any structural biology postgrad worth their salt could do that for you in fairly short order. And they could use that knowledge to invent something to address a particular biological challenge. With, of course, the aid of an astonishingly complex network of technology.

And at the other end of the experience/expertise spectrum for the human component of the system: my toddler can manipulate the ferromagnetic microstructure of a small piece of coated plastic, and the pattern of charge on many tens or hundreds of millions of tiny capacitors crammed together in to a piece of doped silicon, on the other side of the planet, without a second thought. He can even use this mechanism to transmit his image and voice to a grandparent in New Zealand in real time.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely - I rather liked the bit in the article about outsourcing of intelligence. It's still a bit too separate to really count - computers aren't _part_ of us. But we're getting there...

[meihua.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you're using a different definition of "Singularity" from the article cited in the OP.