singularity – Impact Lab

AI, brain-computer interfaces, Elon Musk, Futurist, Machine Learning, Science & Technology News

Elon Musk claims AI will overtake humans in ‘less than five years’

August 5, 2020

Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence are already capable of passing some Turing tests. ( AFP via Getty Images )

Existential threat posed by artificial intelligence is much closer than previously predicted, billionaire warns.

Elon Musk has warned that humans risk being overtaken by artificial intelligence within the next five years.

The prediction marks a significant revision of previous estimations of the so-called technological singularity, when machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence and accelerates at an incomprehensible rate.

Noted futurist Ray Kurzweil previously pegged this superintelligence tipping point at around 2045, citing exponential advances in technologies like robotics, computers and AI.

Continue reading… “Elon Musk claims AI will overtake humans in ‘less than five years’”

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Futurist, Science & Technology News

“Father of Artificial Intelligence” Predicts Singularity is 30 Years Away

November 2, 2019

The “Father of Artificial Intelligence” Says Singularity Is 30 Years Away

All evidence points to the fact that the singularity is coming (regardless of which futurist you believe).

You’ve probably been told that the singularity is coming. It is that long-awaited point in time — likely, a point in our very near future — when advances in artificial intelligence lead to the creation of a machine (a technological form of life?) smarter than humans.

If Ray Kurzweil is to be believed, the singularity will happen in 2045. If we throw our hats in with Louis Rosenberg, then the day will be arriving a little sooner, likely sometime in 2030. MIT’s Patrick Winston would have you believe that it will likely be a little closer to Kurzweil’s prediction, though he puts the date at 2040, specifically.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News

Forget about artificial intelligence, extended intelligence is the future

April 30, 2019

Last year, I participated in a discussion of The Human Use of Human Beings, Norbert Weiner’s groundbreaking book on cybernetics theory. Out of that grew what I now consider a manifesto against the growing singularity movement, which posits that artificial intelligence, or AI, will supersede and eventually displace us humans.

The notion of singularity – which includes the idea that AI will supercede humans with its exponential growth, making everything we humans have done and will do insignificant – is a religion created mostly by people who have designed and successfully deployed computation to solve problems previously considered impossibly complex for machines.

Continue reading… “Forget about artificial intelligence, extended intelligence is the future”

3D Printer, Economy, Employment, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

The end of work: The consequences of an economic singularity

February 20, 2019

Today, we are no longer confined to what nature or natural intelligence must offer. From the steam engine to electricity and digital transformations to artificial intelligence, molecular manufacturing and bioengineering, each new transformative innovation has brought us a new (man-made) way of doing things in ways that nature did not provide for.

As new ways of manufacturing and production are emerging, they are taking away an ever-increasing number of tasks and roles previously performed by a human labor force. Furthermore, the automation, self-improvement, self-replication and distributed nature of the manufacturing processes are producing products and goods at a minimal cost. As a result, each of these existing and emerging technologies, individually and collectively, will likely one day eliminate the need for human labor for production of goods and services—shaking the very fundamentals of economics as we know today.

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Biotech, Future, Futurist, Health & Fitness, Medicine, Robotics, Robots, Science & Technology News, Science Fiction

Kurzweil: By 2030, Nanobots Will Flow Throughout Our Bodies

May 22, 2017

Ray Kurzweil, Google’s director of engineering, is a well-known futurist who seems to have a penchant for accurate predictions. Most recently, he has again reiterated his prediction that the so-called technological singularity will happen by 2045. For Kurzweil, this doesn’t translate to an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario courtesy of artificially intelligent (AI) machines. Rather, it means human beings will become powered by machines.

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Breakthrough Thinking, Culture, Current Events, Economy, Energy, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Probability of Singularity in Question

September 11, 2015

There is a hypothesis by Theodore Modis, that we can expect the rate of technological progress to begin slowing soon, because contrary to Ray Kurzweil, and ilk, technological progress is not exponential, it is logistical.

Modis argues that the exponential growth in technology is a fallacy and that the true nature of the growth is logistic.

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Artificial Intelligence, Brain, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Culture, DaVinci Institute, Education, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Human Behavior, Latest Trend, Medical Breakthrough, New Discoveries, New Inventions, New Viewpoints, Robotics, Science & Technology News, Tom Frey

Our Newest Unit of Measure – 1 Human Intelligence Unit – and Why it will Never Happen

December 10, 2014

Futurist Thomas Frey: I’ve been closely watching the debate on artificial intelligence with people like Rodney Brooks saying it’s only a tool, and others like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking giving bone chilling warnings of how it could lead to the destruction of all humanity.

Continue reading… “Our Newest Unit of Measure – 1 Human Intelligence Unit – and Why it will Never Happen”

Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Historical Perspectives, Latest Trend, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

The Singularity and Our Collision Path with the Future

April 18, 2014

Futurist Thomas Frey: Google’s Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, has predicted that we will reach a technological singularity by 2045, and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge is betting on 2029, a date that is ironically on the hundredth anniversary of the greatest stock market collapse in human history.

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Analysis, Science & Technology News

Could we already be living in the technological singularity?

March 4, 2014

The pace of technological innovation is accelerating quickly.

The news has been turning into science fiction for a while now. TVs that watch the watcher, growing tiny kidneys, 3D printing, the car of tomorrow, Amazon’s fleet of delivery drones – so many news stories now “sound like science fiction” that the term returns 1,290,000 search results on Google.

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Great Videos, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

Futurist Ray Kurzweil’s radical plan to be the first man to achieve immortality

February 13, 2014

Ray Kurzweil, Google’s engineering director, is famous for the strides he has made in machine learning, speech recognition and music technology. But he would rather be known for achieving immortality.

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Analysis, Science & Technology News

Singularity: When man and machine merge to achieve immortality

May 23, 2013

Merging man and machine.

Many future followers predict the pace of technological progression in genetics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence will become so fast that humans will undergo radical evolution by around mid-century. Advances that provide a forever youthful and healthy state of being could be realized.

Continue reading… “Singularity: When man and machine merge to achieve immortality”