What the heck is "The Sigularity" (not black hole)

[Sociotard]

Okay, a few of my favorite scifi bloggers and podcasters have been using this term, and I'm still really fuzzy on it. Its supposed to be some coming step in our social evolution. I mean technological evolution. I mean evolution evolution. Oh, I just don't know anymore.

Here's the wiki entry on the subject
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

At first I thought it just refered to the creation of an AI possessing greater intelligence than human. Then I thought maybe it represented networking humans together to use their collective intelligence. Or maybe it was networking humans and AIs together. Then I thought maybe it had nothing to do with intelligence, but represented the fact that new technology, if it is sufficiently revolutionary, requires a paradigm shift. If we consider civilization a material, and a paradigm shift a bending of that material, there may come a time when the shifts come too fast and the material ruptures, and that point is the singularity.

I've now given up. Can any of you explain the Technological singularity in slow, simple words, as you would explain it to a six-year-old?

[Killer Shrike]

As I understand it, its just the notion that at some point either via AI or some other technological means, a greater than human intelligence will occur that in turn creates something even more advanced, and so on, resulting in a circumstance where the human ability to think and innovate will be rendered obsolete.

[L. Marcus]

As I understand it, a technological/scientific singularity is when research and discoveries comes not years or months apart, but days and hours. It's going from caravels to Los Angeles-class attack subs in the space of a coffee break.

[ghost-angel]

Read Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. It's the basic idea behind the concept.

[McCoy]

new technology, if it is sufficiently revolutionary, requires a paradigm shift.
That fairly well sums it up.

[Manic Typist]

Hm. One of the articles was deleted. I believe there is something that is just generically called a "singularity," rather than "technological singularity."

Essentially, a species has evolved to such a point that it's no longer possible for it to truly communicate or empathize with its former evolutionary state.

I.E. It has become so advanced that it just thinks too differently for someone who hadn't reached that level to understand. Its worldview, values, methods, everything: all are completely alien, even though it's a member of the same species, technically.

[Zeropoint]

Manic Typist has it right. The "singularity" is a period of such rapid and extreme change, both technological and tech-driven societal, that it becomes impossible for those on one side of it to understand the other side. In most conceptions, this involves an element of transhumanism--humans begin to integrate technology into themselves, and before long, become something barely comprehensible to unmodified humans.

For a good look at this, check out the book "Accelerondo".

[Clonus]

It's the Rapture, geek-style.

[Dr. Anomaly]

It's the Rapture, geek-style.

That may be the best, simplest summation I've ever seen!

[Blue Jogger]

The classic example of technological singularity:

We develop writing 2000 years ago.
The printing press, 600 years ago.
Mechanical typewriters about 100 years ago.
Computers about 50 years ago.
Personal computers about 20 years ago.
Internet became popular about 10 years ago.

If trends continue (which is debatable) we will develop sometime "really soon" that will be as amazing as developing both personal computers and internet seemingly overnight.

[Zeropoint]

The time between paradigm-shifting technologies will continue to decrease, until the change is happening so fast that we can't keep up with it.

[Wolf]

I like William Gibson's take on it... That's how I see a lot of it. Boom, advance, some on one side, the rest just don't give a F**k, and try to get the most bling bling, chromed out, suped up, etc. History doesn't matter, Just the now for the rest of us, just survival... by whatever theory you can use to make sense of it all.... Personally, I want to take down the Tessier-Ashpools, or become them.. lol, sorry had to geek out for a sec.

Emergent technology is, by its very nature, out of control, and leads to unpredictable outcomes. -- from a talk given at the Directors Guild of America's Digital Day, Los Angeles, May 17, 2003. - William Gibson

[Inu]

Another decent description of it here: http://www.exitmundi.nl/singularity.htm

Basically, it's not surprising that you can't really imagine what it'd be like, because the simple nature of a singularity defies imagination. In the centre of a black hole, the laws of physics don't apply... what's it like in there? We can't even begin to imagine it. Same as a two-dimensional or four-dimensional world (that is, actually being able to fully perceive four dimensions).

Me, I like to see it as an intellectual exercise more than a prediction. History's okay for predicting future trends, but if past trends indicate something going so wonky in the future... it's probably our predicting methods that are faulty, rather than the future actually looking like that.

[Nyrath]

The best explaination of the Singularity that I've found is the one by Charles Stross.
http://www.accelerando.org/_static/toughguide.html
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