The Singularity definitions being presented here are incredibly confusing and contradictory. If I were a newcomer to the community and saw this thread, I'd say that this word "Singularity" is so poorly defined, it's useless. Everyone is talking past each other. As Nick Hay has pointed out, the Singularity was originally defined as smarter-than-human intelligence, and I think that this definition remains the most relevant, concise, and resistant to misinterpretation.
It's not about technological progress. It's not about experiencing an artificial universe by being plugged into a computer. It's not about human intelligence merging with computing technology. It's not about things changing so fast that we can't keep up, or the accretion of some threshold level of knowledge. All of these things *might* indeed follow from a Singularity, but might not, making it important to distinguish between the likely *effects* of a Singularity and *what the Singularity actually is*. The Singularity *actually is* the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence, but there are many speculative scenarios about what would happen thereafter as there are people who have heard about the idea. The number of completely incompatible Singularity definitions being tossed around on this list underscores the need for a return to the original, simple, and concise definition, which, in that it doesn't make a million and one side claims, is also the easiest to explain to those being exposed to the idea for the first time. We have to define our terms to have a productive discussion, and the easiest way to define a contentious term is to make the definition as simple as possible. The reason that so many in the intellectual community see Singularity discussion as garbage is because there is so little definitional consensus that it's close to impossible to determine what's actually being discussed. Smarter-than-human intelligence. That's all. Whether it's created through Artificial Intelligence, Brain-Computer Interfacing, neurosurgery, genetic engineering, or the fundamental particles making up my neurons quantum-tunneling into a smarter-than-human configuration - the Singularity is the point at which our ability to predict the future breaks down because a new character is introduced that is different from all prior characters in the human story. The creation of smarter-than-human intelligence is called "the Singularity" by analogy to a gravitational singularity, not a mathematical singularity. Nothing actually goes to infinity. In physics, our models of black hole spacetimes spit out infinities because they're fundamentally flawed, not because nature itself is actually producing infinities. Any relationship between the term Singularity and the definition of singularity that means "the quality of being one of a kind" is coincidental. The analogy of our inability to predict the physics past the event horizon of a black hole with the creation of superintelligence is apt, because we know for a fact that our minds are conditioned, both genetically and experientially, to predict the actions of other human minds, not smarter-than-human minds. We can't predict what a smarter-than-human mind would think or do, specifically. But we can predict it in broad outlines - we can confidently say that a smarter-than-human intelligence will 1) be smarter-than-human (by definition), 2) have all the essential properties of an intelligence, including the ability to model the world, make predictions, synthesize data, formulate beliefs, etc., 3) have starting characteristics dictated by the method of its creation, 4) have initial motivations dictated by its prior, pre-superintelligent form, 5) not necessarily display characteristics similar to its human predecessors, and so on. We can predict that a superintelligence would likely be capable of putting a lot of optimization pressure behind its goals. The basic Singularity concept is incredibly mundane. In the midst of all this futuristic excitement, we sometimes forget this. A single genetically engineered child born with a substantially smarter-than-human IQ would constitute a Singularity, because we would have no ability to predict the specifics of what it would do, whereas we have a much greater ability to predict the actions of typical humans. It's also worth pointing out that the Singularity is an event, like the first nuclear test, not a thing, like the first nuke itself. It heralds an irreversible transition to a new era, but our guesses at the specifics of that era are inextricably tied to the real future conditions under which we make that transition. The fact that it is sometimes difficult to predict the actions of everyday humans does not doom this definition of the Singularity. The fact that "smarter-than-human" is a greyscale rather than black-and-white does not condemn it either. The Singularity is one of those things that we'd probably recognize if we saw it, but because it hasn't happened yet it's very difficult to talk about coherently. The Singularity is frequently associated with technology simply because technology is the means by which agents that can't mold their environments directly are able to get things done in a limited time. So by default, we assume that a superintelligence would use technology to get things done, and use a lot of it. But there are possible beings that need no technology to accomplish significant goals. For example, in the future there might be a being that can build a nuclear reactor simply by swallowing uranium and internally processing it into the right configuration. No "technology" required. The Singularity would still be possible if technological process were slowed down or halted. It would still be possible (albeit difficult) if every computer on the planet were smashed to pieces. It would be possible even if it turned out that intelligence can't exist inside a computer. A Singularity this century could easily be stopped, for example if a disease wiped out half of humanity, or a global authoritarian regime forbade research in that direction, or if a nuclear war ejected sufficient dust into the air to shut down photosynthesis. The Singularity is far from inevitable. The Singularity can be a bad thing, resulting in the death of all human beings, or a good thing, such that every single human being on earth can explicitly say that they are glad that it happened. There are also different shades of good: for example, a Singularity that results in the universal availability of "genie machines" could eliminate all journeys of value, by taking us right to the destination whether we want it or not. As we can see, this definition of the Singularity I'm presenting encompasses a lot of possibilities. That's part of the elegance of it. By making a minimal amount of assumptions, it requires the least amount of evidence to back it up. All it requires is that humans aren't the smartest physically possible beings in the universe, and that we will some day have the ability to either upgrade our brains, or create new brains that are smarter than us by design. -- Michael Anissimov Lifeboat Foundation http://lifeboat.com http://acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
