View source for Technological singularity

{{Short description|Hypothetical event}}
{{Redirect|The Singularity||Singularity (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2023}}
{{Futures studies}}

The '''technological singularity''', often simply called '''the singularity''',<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cadwalladr |first=Carole |date=22 February 2014 |title=Are the robots about to rise? Google's new director of engineering thinks so… |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/22/robots-google-ray-kurzweil-terminator-singularity-artificial-intelligence |access-date=8 May 2022}}</ref> is a [[hypothetical]] event in which technological growth accelerates beyond human control, producing unpredictable changes in [[human civilization]].<ref>{{cite web |title= Collection of sources defining "singularity" |url= http://www.singularitysymposium.com/definition-of-singularity.html |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190417002644/http://www.singularitysymposium.com/definition-of-singularity.html |archive-date=17 April 2019 |access-date=17 April 2019 |website= singularitysymposium.com}}</ref><ref name="Singularity hypotheses">{{cite book |url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/1552240 |title=Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment |publisher=Springer |year=2012 |isbn=9783642325601 |editor-last=Eden |editor-first=Amnon H. |series=The Frontiers Collection |location=Dordrecht |pages=1–2 |doi=10.1007/978-3-642-32560-1 |editor-last2=Moor |editor-first2=James H. |editor-last3=Søraker |editor-first3=Johnny H. |editor-last4=Steinhart |editor-first4=Eric}}</ref> According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, [[I. J. Good]]'s [[#Intelligence explosion|intelligence explosion]] model of 1965, an upgradable [[intelligent agent]] could eventually enter a positive feedback loop of successive [[Recursive self-improvement|self-improvement]] cycles; more intelligent generations would appear more and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase in intelligence that culminates in a powerful [[superintelligence]], far surpassing [[human intelligence]].<ref name="vinge1993">Vinge, Vernor. [http://mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html "The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180410074243/http://mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html|date=2018-04-10}}, in ''Vision-21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of Cyberspace'', G. A. Landis, ed., NASA Publication CP-10129, pp. 11–22, 1993. "There may be developed computers that are "awake" and superhumanly intelligent. (To date, there has been much controversy as to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is 'yes, we can', then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.)"</ref>

<!-- Human extinction: -->Some scientists, including [[Stephen Hawking]], have expressed concern that [[Superintelligence|artificial superintelligence]] could result in human extinction.<ref>{{cite news|last1= Sparkes|first1= Matthew|title= Top scientists call for caution over artificial intelligence|url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11342200/Top-scientists-call-for-caution-over-artificial-intelligence.html|access-date= 24 April 2015|work= [[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph (UK)]]|date= 13 January 2015|archive-date= 7 April 2015|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150407191839/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11342200/Top-scientists-call-for-caution-over-artificial-intelligence.html|url-status= live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540|title= Hawking: AI could end human race|date= 2 December 2014|publisher= BBC|access-date= 11 November 2017|archive-date= 30 October 2015|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20151030054329/http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540|url-status=live}}</ref> The consequences of a technological singularity and its potential benefit or harm to the human race have been intensely debated.

<!-- Plausibility: -->Prominent technologists and academics dispute the plausibility of a technological singularity and associated artificial intelligence "explosion", including [[Paul Allen]],<ref name="Allen2011"/> [[Jeff Hawkins]],<ref name="ieee-lumi"/> [[John Henry Holland|John Holland]], [[Jaron Lanier]], [[Steven Pinker]],<ref name="ieee-lumi"/> [[Theodore Modis]],<ref name="modis2012"/> [[Gordon Moore]],<ref name="ieee-lumi" /> and [[Roger Penrose]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Penrose |first=Roger |title=The emperor's new mind: concerning computers, minds and the laws of physics |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-19-286198-6 |location=Oxford}}</ref> One claim is that artificial intelligence growth is likely to run into decreasing returns instead of accelerating ones. [[Stuart J. Russell]] and [[Peter Norvig]] observe that in the history of technology, improvement in a particular area tends to follow an S curve: it begins with accelerating improvement, then levels off without continuing upward into a hyperbolic singularity.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Russell |first1=Stuart J. |author-link=Stuart J. Russell |title=[[Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach]] |last2=Norvig |first2=Peter |author-link2=Peter Norvig |publisher=Pearson |date=2021 |isbn=978-0-1346-1099-3 |edition=4th |location=Hoboken |lccn=20190474 | page = 1005}}</ref>

== History ==

[[Alan Turing]], often regarded as the father of modern computer science, laid a crucial foundation for contemporary discourse on the technological singularity. His pivotal 1950 paper "[[Computing Machinery and Intelligence]]" argued that a machine could, in theory, exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of a human.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-08-13 |title=What is the Technological Singularity? {{!}} IBM |url=https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/technological-singularity |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=www.ibm.com |language=en}}</ref> However, machines capable of performing at or beyond a human level do not require a technological singularity to have occurred in order to be developed, nor do they necessarily imply the possibility of such an occurrence, as demonstrated by events such as the [[Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov|victory]] of IBM's [[Deep Blue (chess computer)|Deep Blue]] supercomputer in a chess match with grandmaster [[Garry Kasparov|Gary Kasparov]] in 1996.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2021-02-12 |title=Deep Blue computer beats world chess champion – archive 12 February 1996 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/12/deep-blue-computer-beats-kasparov-chess-1996#comments |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210212053938/https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/12/deep-blue-computer-beats-kasparov-chess-1996#comments |archive-date=2021-02-12 |access-date=2025-11-13 |work=the Guardian |language=en}}</ref>

The Hungarian–American mathematician [[John von Neumann]] (1903–1957) is the first known person to discuss a coming "singularity" in technological progress.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vinge |first=Vernor |author-link=Vernor Vinge |title=Proceedings of a symposium cosponsored by the NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute and held in Westlake, Ohio, March 30–31, 1993 |date=1993 |series=NASA Conference Publication |volume=10129 |page=11 |chapter=The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era |bibcode=1993vise.nasa...11V |chapter-url=https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19940022855/downloads/19940022855.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Shanahan |first=Murray |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rAxZCgAAQBAJ |title=The Technological Singularity |date=2015-08-07 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-52780-4 |page=233 |language=en}}</ref> [[Stanislaw Ulam]] reported in 1958 that an earlier discussion with von Neumann "centered on the [[Accelerating change|accelerating progress]] of technology and changes in human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential [[Wiktionary:singularity|singularity]] in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue".<ref name="ulam1958" /> Subsequent authors have echoed this viewpoint.<ref name="Singularity hypotheses" /><ref name="chalmers2010" />

In 1965, [[I. J. Good]] speculated that superhuman intelligence might bring about an "intelligence explosion":<ref name="good1965"/><ref name="good1965-stat"/>
{{blockquote|Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion', and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.|source=Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965)}}

The concept and the term "singularity" were popularized by [[Vernor Vinge]]: first in 1983, in an article that claimed that, once humans create intelligences greater than their own, there will be a technological and social transition similar in some sense to "the knotted space-time at the center of a black hole";<ref name="dooling2008-88"/> and then in his 1993 essay "The Coming Technological Singularity",<ref name="vinge1993" /><ref name="chalmers2010"/> in which he wrote that it would signal the end of the human era, as the new superintelligence would continue to upgrade itself and advance technologically at an incomprehensible rate, and he would be surprised if it occurred before 2005 or after 2030.<ref name="vinge1993"/>

Another significant contribution to wider circulation of the notion was [[Ray Kurzweil]]'s 2005 book ''[[The Singularity Is Near]]'', predicting singularity by 2045.<ref name="chalmers2010"/>

== Intelligence explosion ==
{{Further|Recursive self-improvement}}

Although technological progress has been accelerating in most areas{{citation needed|reason=This statement is both too broad and vague to be claimed without reference to a source.|date=November 2025}}, it has been limited by the basic intelligence of the human brain, which has not, according to [[Paul R. Ehrlich]], changed significantly for millennia.<ref name="Paul Ehrlich June 2008">{{Cite web |last=Ehrlich |first=Paul |title=Paul Ehrlich: The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment – The Long Now |url=https://longnow.org/seminars/02008/jun/27/dominant-animal-human-evolution-and-environment/ |access-date=2023-06-14 |website=longnow.org}}</ref> But with the increasing power of computers and other technologies, it might eventually be possible to build a machine significantly more intelligent than humans.<ref name="businessweek">{{Cite web |date=2023-04-20 |title=Businessweek – Bloomberg |url=https://bloomberg.com/businessweek |access-date=2023-06-14 |website=Bloomberg.com |language=en}}{{dead link|date=November 2025}}</ref>

If superhuman intelligence is invented—through either the [[Intelligence amplification|amplification of human intelligence]] or artificial intelligence—it will, in theory, vastly surpass human problem-solving and inventive skill. Such an AI is often called a seed AI<ref name="Yampolskiy, Roman V 2015">Yampolskiy, Roman V. "Analysis of types of self-improving software." Artificial General Intelligence. Springer International Publishing, 2015. pp. 384–393.</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">[[Eliezer Yudkowsky]]. ''General Intelligence and Seed AI-Creating Complete Minds Capable of Open-Ended Self-Improvement'', 2001.</ref> because if an AI is created with engineering capabilities that match or surpass those of its creators, it could autonomously improve its own software and hardware to design an even more capable machine, which could repeat the process in turn. This recursive self-improvement could accelerate, potentially allowing enormous qualitative change before reaching any limits imposed by the laws of physics or theoretical computation. It is speculated that over many iterations, such an AI [[Superintelligence|would far surpass human cognitive abilities]].

==Emergence of superintelligence==
{{Further|Superintelligence}}
A superintelligence, hyperintelligence, or superhuman intelligence is a hypothetical [[intelligent agent|agent]] that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of even the brightest and most gifted humans.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chalmers |first1=David J. |title=Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence |date=2016 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-92261-3 |pages=171–224 |edition=2nd |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118922590.ch16 |language=en |chapter=The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis|doi=10.1002/9781118922590.ch16 }}</ref> "Superintelligence" may also refer to the form or degree of intelligence possessed by such an agent. [[I. J. Good]], [[Vernor Vinge]], and [[Ray Kurzweil]] define the concept in terms of the technological creation of super intelligence, arguing that it is difficult or impossible for present-day humans to predict what human beings' lives would be like in a post-singularity world.<ref name="vinge1993"/><ref name="kurzweil2005-135"/>

The related concept of "speed superintelligence" describes an artificial intelligence that can function like a human mind but much faster.<ref>{{cite book |author=Sotala |first1=Kaj |title=The Technological Singularity |last2=Yampolskiy |first2=Roman |publisher=Springer Berlin Heidelberg |year=2017 |isbn=978-3-662-54031-2 |series=The Frontiers Collection |location=Berlin and Heidelberg, Germany |pages=11–23 |chapter=Risks of the Journey to the Singularity |doi=10.1007/978-3-662-54033-6_2}}</ref> For example, given a millionfold increase in the speed of information processing relative to that of humans, a subjective year would pass in 30 physical seconds.<ref name="singinst.org"/> Such a increase in information processing speed could result in, or significantly contribute to the singularity.<ref name="chalmers2016">{{cite book |author=Chalmers |first=David J. |title=Science Fiction and Philosophy |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc |year=2016 |isbn=9781118922590 |pages=171–224 |chapter=The Singularity |doi=10.1002/9781118922590.ch16}}</ref>

Technology forecasters and researchers disagree about when, or whether, human intelligence could likely be surpassed. Some argue that advances in [[artificial intelligence]] (AI) may result in general reasoning systems that bypass human cognitive limitations. Others believe that humans will evolve or directly modify their biology so as to achieve radically greater intelligence.<ref>{{Citation |last=Pearce |first=David |title=The Biointelligence Explosion |date=2012 |work=Singularity Hypotheses |pages=199–238 |editor-last=Eden |editor-first=Amnon H. |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-642-32560-1_11 |access-date=2022-01-16 |series=The Frontiers Collection |place=Berlin and Heidelberg, Germany |publisher=Springer Berlin Heidelberg |doi=10.1007/978-3-642-32560-1_11 |isbn=978-3-642-32559-5 |editor2-last=Moor |editor2-first=James H. |editor3-last=Søraker |editor3-first=Johnny H. |editor4-last=Steinhart |editor4-first=Eric|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=The Age of Artificial Intelligence: An Exploration|year=2020|isbn=978-1-62273-872-4|editor-last=Gouveia|editor-first=Steven S.|chapter=ch. 4, "Humans and Intelligent Machines: Co-evolution, Fusion or Replacement?", David Pearce|publisher=Vernon Press |chapter-url=https://www.biointelligence-explosion.com/parable.html}}</ref> A number of [[futures studies]] focus on scenarios that combine these possibilities, suggesting that humans are likely to [[brain–computer interface|interface with computers]], or [[mind uploading|upload their minds to computers]], in a way that enables substantial intelligence amplification. [[Robin Hanson]]'s 2016 book ''[[The Age of Em]]'' describes a future in which human brains are scanned and digitized, creating "uploads" or digital versions of human consciousness. In this future, the development of these uploads may precede or coincide with the emergence of superintelligent AI.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hanson |first=Robin |author-link=Robin Hanson |url=https://ageofem.com/ |title=The Age of Em |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780198754626 |location=Oxford, England |page=528}}</ref>

==Variations==
=== Non-AI singularity ===
Some writers use "the singularity" in a broader way, to refer to any radical changes in society brought about by new technology (such as [[molecular nanotechnology]]),<ref name="hall2010"/><ref name="yudkowsky2007"/><ref name="sandberg2009"/> although Vinge and other writers say that without superintelligence, such changes would not be a true singularity.<ref name="vinge1993" />

==Predictions==
[[File:Performance of AI models on various benchmarks from 1998 to 2024.png|upright=1.7|thumb|[[Progress of AI]] performance on various benchmarks compared to human-level performance<ref>{{Cite web |date=17 May 2024 |title=International scientific report on the safety of advanced AI: interim report |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-scientific-report-on-the-safety-of-advanced-ai |access-date= |website=GOV.UK |page=26 |language=en}}</ref> including computer vision (MNIST, ImageNet), speech recognition (Switchboard), natural language understanding (SQuAD 1.1, MMLU, GLUE), general language model evaluation (MMLU, Big-Bench, and GPQA), and mathematical reasoning (MATH). Many models surpass human-level performance (black solid line) by 2019, demonstrating significant advancements in AI capabilities across different domains over the past two decades.]]
Numerous dates have been predicted for the attainment of singularity.

In 1965, [[I. J. Good|Good]] wrote that it was more probable than not that an ultra-intelligent machine would be built in the 20th century.<ref name="good1965" />

That computing capabilities for human-level AI would be available in supercomputers before 2010 was predicted in 1988 by [[Hans Moravec|Moravec]], assuming that the then current rate of improvement continued.<ref name="moravec1988" />

The attainment of greater-than-human intelligence between 2005 and 2030 was predicted by [[Vernor Vinge|Vinge]] in 1993.<ref name="vinge1993" />

Human-level AI around 2029 and the singularity in 2045 was predicted by Kurzweil in 2005.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-01-22 |title=List of Analyses of Time to Human-Level AI |url=https://aiimpacts.org/list-of-analyses-of-time-to-human-level-ai/ |access-date=2023-06-14 |website=AI Impacts |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kurzweil |first=Ray |title=The Singularity Is Near |publisher=Penguin Group |year=2005 |pages=120}}</ref> He reaffirmed these predictions in 2024 in [[The Singularity Is Nearer|''The Singularity is Nearer'']].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kurzweil |first=Ray |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1438926317 |title=The singularity is nearer: when we merge with Al |date=2024 |publisher=Viking |isbn=978-0-399-56276-1 |location=New York |oclc=on1438926317}}</ref>

Human-level AI by 2040, and intelligence far beyond human by 2050 was predicted in 1998 by Moravec, revising his earlier prediction.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moravec |first=Hans P. |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/MORRMM |title=Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind |date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press USA |language=en}}</ref>

A median confidence of 50% that [[artificial general intelligence|human-level AI]] would be developed by 2040–2050 was the outcome of four informal polls of AI researchers, conducted in 2012 and 2013 by [[Nick Bostrom|Bostrom]] and [[Vincent C. Müller|Müller]].<ref name="newyorker">{{cite news|last1=Khatchadourian|first1=Raffi|title=The Doomsday Invention|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/doomsday-invention-artificial-intelligence-nick-bostrom|access-date=31 January 2018|magazine=The New Yorker|date=16 November 2015|archive-date=29 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190429183807/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/doomsday-invention-artificial-intelligence-nick-bostrom|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Müller, V. C., & Bostrom, N. (2016). "Future progress in artificial intelligence: A survey of expert opinion". In V. C. Müller (ed): ''Fundamental issues of artificial intelligence'' (pp. 555–572). Berlin, Germany: Springer Berlin. http://philpapers.org/rec/MLLFPI {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190302090534/https://philpapers.org/rec/MLLFPI|date=2019-03-02}}.</ref>

In September 2025, a review of surveys of scientists and industry experts from the previous 15 years found that most agreed that [[artificial general intelligence]] (AGI), a level well below technological singularity, will occur by 2100.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Orf |first=Darren |date=October 2025 |title=Humanity May Achieve the Singularity Within the Next 3 Months, Scientists Suggest |url=https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a68205442/singularity-three-months/ |access-date=2025-10-02 |website=Popular Mechanics |publisher=}}</ref> A more recent analysis by AIMultiple reported, "Current surveys of AI researchers are predicting AGI around 2040".<ref name=":1" />

==Plausibility==
Prominent technologists and academics who dispute the plausibility of a technological singularity include [[Paul Allen]],<ref name="Allen2011"/> [[Jeff Hawkins]],<ref name="ieee-lumi"/> [[John Henry Holland|John Holland]], [[Jaron Lanier]], [[Steven Pinker]],<ref name="ieee-lumi"/> [[Theodore Modis]],<ref name="modis2012"/> and [[Gordon Moore]],<ref name="ieee-lumi"/> whose [[Moore's law|law]] is often cited in support of the concept.<ref name="ieee-whos-who"/>[[File:The Moore's Law Update — for 128 years - 54181414828.jpg|thumb|upright=2.4|Note the slower growth prior to 1965 and again prior to about 1930.]]Proposed methods for creating superhuman or [[transhuman]] minds typically fall into two categories: intelligence amplification of human brains and artificial intelligence. The many speculated ways to augment human intelligence include [[bioengineering]], [[genetic engineering]], [[nootropic]] drugs, AI assistants, direct [[brain–computer interface]]s, and [[mind uploading]].<ref name="singinst.org">{{cite web|url=http://singinst.org/overview/whatisthesingularity |title=What is the Singularity? &#124; Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence |publisher=Singinst.org |access-date=2011-09-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110908014050/http://singinst.org/overview/whatisthesingularity/ |archive-date=2011-09-08 }}</ref>

[[Robin Hanson]] has expressed skepticism of human intelligence augmentation, writing that once the "low-hanging fruit" of easy methods for increasing human intelligence have been exhausted, further improvements will become increasingly difficult.<ref name="hanson">{{cite web |url=https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/vc.html#hanson |title=Some Skepticism |date=1998 |first=Robin |last=Hanson |author-link=Robin Hanson |access-date=April 8, 2020 |archive-date=February 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215095129/https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/vc.html#hanson |url-status=live }}</ref>

In conversation regarding human-level artificial intelligence with cognitive scientist [[Gary Marcus]], computer scientist [[Grady Booch]], speaking skeptically, referred to the singularity as "sufficiently imprecise, filled with emotional and historic baggage, and touches some of humanity's deepest hopes and fears that it's hard to have a rational discussion therein".<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Marcus |first=Gary |date=2023-01-22 |title=AGI will not happen in your lifetime. Or will it? |url=https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/agi-will-not-happen-in-your-lifetime |access-date=2025-11-13 |website=Marcus on AI}}</ref> Later in the conversation, Marcus, while more optimistic about the progress of AI, agreed that any major advances would not happen as a single event, but rather as a slow and gradual increase in reliability usefulness.<ref name=":2" />

The possibility of an intelligence explosion depends on three factors. The first accelerating factor is the new intelligence enhancements made possible by each previous improvement. But as the intelligences become more advanced, further advances will become more and more complicated, possibly outweighing the advantage of increased intelligence. Each improvement should generate at least one more improvement, on average, for movement toward singularity to continue. Finally, the laws of physics may eventually prevent further improvement.<ref name="david_chalmers_singularity_lecture_resources_available">David Chalmers John Locke Lecture, 10 May 2009, Exam Schools, Oxford University, [http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/news/2010/david_chalmers_singularity_lecture_resources_available Presenting a philosophical analysis of the possibility of a technological singularity or "intelligence explosion" resulting from recursively self-improving AI]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130115205558/http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/news/2010/david_chalmers_singularity_lecture_resources_available|date=2013-01-15}}.</ref>

There are two logically independent, but mutually reinforcing, causes of intelligence improvements: increases in the speed of computation and improvements to the [[algorithm]]s used.<ref name="chalmers2010"/> The former is predicted by [[Moore's law|Moore's Law]] and the forecasted improvements in hardware,<ref name="itrs">{{cite web |url=http://www.itrs.net/Links/2007ITRS/ExecSum2007.pdf |title=ITRS |access-date=2011-09-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929173755/http://www.itrs.net/Links/2007ITRS/ExecSum2007.pdf |archive-date=2011-09-29 }}</ref> and is comparatively similar to previous technological advances. "Most experts believe that Moore's law is coming to an end during this decade", the AIMultiple report reads,<ref name=":1" /> but "quantum computing can be used to efficiently train neural networks",<ref name=":1" /> potentially working around any end to Moore's Law. But Schulman and Sandberg<ref>{{cite web|last1=Shulman |first1=Carl |last2=Anders |first2=Sandberg |title=Implications of a Software-Limited Singularity |url=https://intelligence.org/files/SoftwareLimited.pdf |year=2010 |website=[[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]]}}</ref> argue that software will present more complex challenges than simply operating on hardware capable of running at human intelligence levels or beyond.

A 2017 email survey of authors with publications at the 2015 [[Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems|NeurIPS]] and [[International Conference on Machine Learning|ICML]] [[machine learning]] conferences asked about the chance that "the intelligence explosion argument is broadly correct". Of the respondents, 12% said it was "quite likely", 17% said it was "likely", 21% said it was "about even", 24% said it was "unlikely", and 26% said it was "quite unlikely".<ref name="exceed2017">{{cite arXiv|last1=Grace|first1=Katja|last2=Salvatier|first2=John|last3=Dafoe|first3=Allan|last4=Zhang|first4=Baobao|last5=Evans|first5=Owain|title=When Will AI Exceed Human Performance? Evidence from AI Experts|eprint=1705.08807|date=24 May 2017|class=cs.AI}}</ref>

== Speed improvements ==
Both for human and artificial intelligence, hardware improvements increase the rate of future hardware improvements. Some upper limit on speed may eventually be reached. Jeff Hawkins has said that a self-improving computer system will inevitably run into limits on computing power: "in the end there are limits to how big and fast computers can run. We would end up in the same place; we'd just get there a bit faster. There would be no singularity."<ref name="ieee-lumi"/>

It is difficult to directly compare [[silicon]]-based hardware with [[neuron]]s. But Anthony Berglas notes that computer [[speech recognition]] is approaching human capabilities, and that this capability seems to require 0.01% of the volume of the brain. This analogy suggests that modern computer hardware is within a few orders of magnitude of being as powerful as the [[human brain]], as well as taking up much less space. The costs of training systems with [[deep learning]] may be larger.{{sfn|Berglas|2008}}{{efn |[[Large language model]]s such as [[ChatGPT]] and [[Llama (language model)|Llama]] require millions of hours of graphics processing unit ([[Graphics processing unit|GPU]]) time. Training Meta's Llama in 2023 took 21 days on 2048 [[Nvidia A100|NVIDIA A100]] GPUs, thus requiring hardware substantially larger than a brain. Training took around a million GPU hours, with an estimated cost of over $2 million.  Even so, it is far smaller, and thus easier to train, than a LLM such as ChatGPT, which as of 2023 had 175 billion parameters to adjust, compared to 65 million for Llama.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Leswing |first=Jonathan Vanian,Kif |date=2023-03-13 |title=ChatGPT and generative AI are booming, but the costs can be extraordinary |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/13/chatgpt-and-generative-ai-are-booming-but-at-a-very-expensive-price.html |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=CNBC |language=en}}</ref>}}

===Exponential growth===
[[Image:PPTMooresLawai.jpg|thumb|upright=2|left|Ray Kurzweil writes that, due to [[paradigm shift]]s, a trend of exponential growth extends [[Moore's law]] from [[integrated circuits]] to earlier [[transistor]]s, [[vacuum tube]]s, [[relay]]s, and [[electromechanics|electromechanical]] computers. He predicts that the exponential growth will continue, and that in a few decades the computing power of all computers will exceed that of ("unenhanced") human brains, with superhuman [[artificial intelligence]] appearing around the same time.]]

The exponential growth in computing technology suggested by Moore's law is commonly cited as a reason to expect a singularity in the relatively near future, and a number of authors have proposed generalizations of Moore's law. Computer scientist and futurist Hans Moravec proposed in a 1998 book<ref>{{cite book |author=Moravec |first=Hans |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fduW6KHhWtQC&pg=PA61 |title=Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-19-513630-2 |page=61 |language=en}}</ref> that the exponential growth curve could be extended back to earlier computing technologies before the [[integrated circuit]].

[[Ray Kurzweil]] postulates a [[law of accelerating returns]] whereby the speed of technological change (and more generally, all evolutionary processes)<ref name="kurzweil1999"/> increases exponentially, generalizing Moore's law in the same manner as Moravec's proposal, and also including material technology (especially as applied to [[nanotechnology]]) and [[Medical Technology|medical technology]].<ref name="kurzweil2005"/> Between 1986 and 2007, machines' application-specific capacity to compute information per capita roughly doubled every 14 months; the per capita capacity of the world's general-purpose computers has doubled every 18 months; the global telecommunication capacity per capita doubled every 34 months; and the world's storage capacity per capita doubled every 40 months.<ref name="HilbertLopez2011">[https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1200970 "The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130727161911/http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6025/60|date=2013-07-27}}, Martin Hilbert and Priscila López (2011), [[Science (journal)|Science]], 332 (6025), pp. 60–65; free access to the article through: martinhilbert.net/WorldInfoCapacity.html.</ref> On the other hand, it has been argued that the global acceleration pattern having a 21st-century singularity as its parameter should be characterized as [[Hyperbolic growth|hyperbolic]] rather than exponential.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=2020 |editor-last=Korotayev |editor-first=Andrey V. |editor2-last=LePoire |editor2-first=David J. |title=The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures |url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-33730-8 |journal=World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-33730-8 |isbn=978-3-030-33729-2 |s2cid=241407141 |issn=2522-0985|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Kurzweil reserves the term "singularity" for a rapid increase in artificial intelligence (as opposed to other technologies), writing: "The Singularity will allow us to transcend these limitations of our biological bodies and brains ... There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine".<ref name="kurzweil2005-9"/> He also defines the singularity as when computer-based intelligences significantly exceed the sum total of human brainpower, writing that advances in computing before that "will not represent the Singularity" because they do "not yet correspond to a profound expansion of our intelligence."<ref name="kurzweil2005-135136"/>

===Accelerating change===
{{Main|Accelerating change}}

[[File:ParadigmShiftsFrr15Events.svg|thumb|upright=2|According to Kurzweil, his [[logarithmic scale|logarithmic graph]] of 15 lists of [[paradigm shift]]s for key [[human history|historic]] events shows an [[exponential growth|exponential]] trend.]]

Some singularity proponents argue its inevitability through extrapolation of past trends, especially those pertaining to shortening gaps between improvements to technology. In one of the first uses of the term "singularity" in the context of technological progress, [[Stanislaw Ulam]] tells of a conversation with [[John von Neumann]] about accelerating change: {{blockquote|One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.<ref name="ulam1958"/>}}

Kurzweil claims that technological progress follows a pattern of [[exponential growth]], following what he calls the "[[law of accelerating returns]]". Whenever technology approaches a barrier, Kurzweil writes, new technologies surmount it. He predicts [[paradigm shift]]s will become increasingly common, leading to "technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history".<ref name="Kurzweil 2001">{{Citation |last=Kurzweil |first=Raymond |title=The Law of Accelerating Returns |url=http://lifeboat.com/ex/law.of.accelerating.returns |access-date=2007-08-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180827014027/https://lifeboat.com/ex/law.of.accelerating.returns |archive-date=2018-08-27 |url-status=live |publisher=Lifeboat Foundation |author-link=Raymond Kurzweil }}.</ref> Kurzweil believes that the singularity will occur by 2045.<ref name="kurzweil2005"/> His predictions differ from Vinge's in that he predicts a gradual ascent to the singularity, rather than Vinge's rapidly self-improving superhuman intelligence.

Oft-cited dangers include those commonly associated with molecular nanotechnology and [[genetic engineering]]. These threats are major issues for both singularity advocates and critics, and were the subject of [[Bill Joy]]'s 2000 ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' magazine article "[[Why The Future Doesn't Need Us]]".<ref name="chalmers2010" /><ref name="Joy2000"/>

== Algorithm improvements ==
Some intelligence technologies, like "seed AI",<ref name="Yampolskiy, Roman V 2015"/><ref name="ReferenceA"/> may also be able to make themselves not just faster but also more efficient, by modifying their [[source code]]. These improvements would make further improvements possible, which would make further improvements possible, and so on.

The mechanism for a recursively self-improving set of algorithms differs from an increase in raw computation speed in two ways. First, it does not require external influence: machines designing faster hardware would still require humans to create the improved hardware, or to program factories appropriately.{{citation needed|date=July 2017}} An AI rewriting its own source code could do so while contained in an [[AI box]].

Second, as with [[Vernor Vinge]]'s conception of the singularity, it is much harder to predict the outcome. While speed increases seem to be only a quantitative difference from human intelligence, actual algorithm improvements would be qualitatively different.

Substantial dangers are associated with an intelligence explosion singularity originating from a recursively self-improving set of algorithms. First, the goal structure of the AI might self-modify, potentially causing the AI to optimise for something other than what was originally intended.<ref name="selfawaresystems">{{Cite web |last=Omohundro |first=Stephen M. |date=30 November 2007 |editor-last=Wang |editor-first=Pei |editor2-last=Goertzel |editor2-first=Ben |editor3-last=Franklin |editor3-first=Stan |title="The Basic AI Drives." Artificial General Intelligence, 2008 proceedings of the First AGI Conference, Vol. 171. |url=http://selfawaresystems.com/2007/11/30/paper-on-the-basic-ai-drives/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180917003322/https://selfawaresystems.com/2007/11/30/paper-on-the-basic-ai-drives/ |archive-date=2018-09-17 |access-date=2010-08-20 |publisher=IOS |place=Amsterdam, Netherlands}}</ref><ref name="kurzweilai">{{cite web |url=http://www.kurzweilai.net/artificial-general-intelligence-now-is-the-time |title=Artificial General Intelligence: Now Is the Time |publisher=KurzweilAI |access-date=2011-09-09 |archive-date=2011-12-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111204070036/http://www.kurzweilai.net/artificial-general-intelligence-now-is-the-time |url-status=live }}</ref> Second, AIs could compete for the resources humankind uses to survive.<ref name="selfawaresystems.com">{{Cite web |url=http://selfawaresystems.com/2007/10/05/paper-on-the-nature-of-self-improving-artificial-intelligence/ |title=Omohundro, Stephen M., "The Nature of Self-Improving Artificial Intelligence." Self-Aware Systems. 21 Jan. 2008. Web. 07 Jan. 2010. |date=6 October 2007 |access-date=2010-08-20 |archive-date=2018-06-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612163100/https://selfawaresystems.com/2007/10/05/paper-on-the-nature-of-self-improving-artificial-intelligence/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Barrat|first1=James|title=Our Final Invention|year=2013|publisher=St. Martin's Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0312622374|pages=78–98|edition=First|chapter=6, "Four Basic Drives"|title-link=Our Final Invention}}</ref> While not actively malicious, AIs would promote the goals of their programming, not necessarily broader human goals, and thus might crowd out humans.<ref name="kurzweilai.net">{{cite web |url=http://www.kurzweilai.net/max-more-and-ray-kurzweil-on-the-singularity-2 |title=Max More and Ray Kurzweil on the Singularity |publisher=KurzweilAI |access-date=2011-09-09 |archive-date=2018-11-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181121213047/http://www.kurzweilai.net/max-more-and-ray-kurzweil-on-the-singularity-2 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite web |url=http://singinst.org/riskintro/index.html |title=Concise Summary &#124; Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence |publisher=Singinst.org |access-date=2011-09-09 |archive-date=2011-06-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110621172641/http://singinst.org/riskintro/index.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="nickbostrom7">{{Cite web |url=http://www.nickbostrom.com/fut/evolution.html |last=Bostrom |first=Nick |title=The Future of Human Evolution |year=2004  |access-date=2010-08-20 |archive-date=2018-08-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180828203258/https://nickbostrom.com/fut/evolution.html |url-status=live}}<!-- Published in Death and Anti-Death: Two Hundred Years After Kant, Fifty Years After Turing, ed. Charles Tandy (Ria University Press: Palo Alto, California, 2004): pp. 339-371. --></ref>

[[Carl Shulman]] and [[Anders Sandberg]] suggest that algorithm improvements may be the limiting factor for a singularity; while hardware efficiency tends to improve at a steady pace, software innovations are more unpredictable and may be bottlenecked by serial, cumulative research. They suggest that in the case of a software-limited singularity, intelligence explosion would actually become more likely than with a hardware-limited singularity, because in the software-limited case, once human-level AI is developed, it could run serially on very fast hardware, and the abundance of cheap hardware would make AI research less constrained.<ref name="ShulmanSandberg2010">{{cite journal |last1=Shulman |first1=Carl |last2=Sandberg |first2=Anders |year=2010 |editor1-last=Mainzer |editor1-first=Klaus |title=Implications of a Software-Limited Singularity |url=http://intelligence.org/files/SoftwareLimited.pdf |url-status=live |journal=ECAP10: VIII European Conference on Computing and Philosophy |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190430061928/https://intelligence.org/files/SoftwareLimited.pdf |archive-date=30 April 2019 |access-date=17 May 2014}}</ref> An abundance of accumulated hardware that can be unleashed once the software figures out how to use it has been called "computing overhang".<ref name="MuehlhauserSalamon2012">{{cite book |last1=Muehlhauser |first1=Luke |title=Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment |last2=Salamon |first2=Anna |publisher=Springer |year=2012 |editor=Eden |editor-first=Amnon |chapter=Intelligence Explosion: Evidence and Import |access-date=2018-08-28 |editor2=Søraker |editor-first2=Johnny |editor3=Moor |editor-first3=James H. |editor4=Steinhart |editor-first4=Eric |chapter-url=http://intelligence.org/files/IE-EI.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141026105011/http://intelligence.org/files/IE-EI.pdf |archive-date=2014-10-26 |url-status=live}}</ref>

==Criticism==
Linguist and cognitive scientist [[Steven Pinker]] wrote in 2008: "There is not the slightest reason to believe in a coming singularity. The fact that you can visualize a future in your imagination is not evidence that it is likely or even possible. Look at domed cities, jet-pack commuting, underwater cities, mile-high buildings, and nuclear-powered automobiles—all staples of futuristic fantasies when I was a child that have never arrived. Sheer processing power is not a pixie dust that magically solves all your problems."<ref name="ieee-lumi"/>

[[Jaron Lanier]] denies that the singularity is inevitable: "I do not think the technology is creating itself. It's not an autonomous process [...] The reason to believe in human agency over technological determinism is that you can then have an economy where people earn their own way and invent their own lives. If you structure a society on ''not'' emphasizing individual human agency, it's the same thing operationally as denying people clout, dignity, and self-determination ... to embrace [the idea of the Singularity] would be a celebration of bad data and bad politics."<ref name="lanier">{{cite web |author=Lanier |first=Jaron |date=2013 |title=Who Owns the Future? |url=http://www.epubbud.com/read.php?g=JCB8D9LA&tocp=59 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160513131523/http://www.epubbud.com/read.php?g=JCB8D9LA&tocp=59 |archive-date=2016-05-13 |access-date=2016-03-02 |work=New York: Simon & Schuster}}</ref>

Philosopher and cognitive scientist [[Daniel Dennett]] said in 2017: "The whole singularity stuff, that's preposterous. It distracts us from much more pressing problems [...] AI tools that we become hyper-dependent on—that is going to happen. And one of the dangers is that we will give them more authority than they warrant."<ref>{{Citation |last=Cadwalladr |first=Carole |title=Daniel Dennett: 'I begrudge every hour I have to spend worrying about politics' |date=12 February 2017 |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/12/daniel-dennett-politics-bacteria-bach-back-dawkins-trump-interview |author-link=Carole Cadwalladr}}.</ref>

<!-- religious semblance: -->Some critics suggest religious motivations for believing in the singularity, especially Kurzweil's version. The buildup to the singularity is compared to Christian [[Eschatology|end-times]] scenarios. Beam called it "a [[Buck Rogers]] vision of the hypothetical Christian Rapture".<ref name="beam2005">{{cite news|last=Beam|first=Alex|title=That Singularity Sensation|url=http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2005/02/24/that_singularity_sensation/|access-date=2013-02-15|newspaper=The Boston Globe|date=2005-02-24}}</ref> [[John Gray (philosopher)|John Gray]] has said, "the Singularity echoes apocalyptic myths in which history is about to be interrupted by a world-transforming event".<ref name="gray2011">{{cite magazine|last=Gray|first=John|title=On the Road to Immortality|magazine=The New York Review of Books|date=2011-11-24|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/24/road-immortality/?pagination=false|access-date=2013-03-19}}</ref>

In ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[David Streitfeld]] questioned whether "it might manifest first and foremost—thanks, in part, to the bottom-line obsession of today’s [[Silicon Valley]]—as a tool to slash corporate America’s head count."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Streitfeld |first=David |date=11 June 2023 |title=Silicon Valley Confronts the Idea That the 'Singularity' Is Here |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/11/technology/silicon-valley-confronts-the-idea-that-the-singularity-is-here.html |access-date=11 June 2023 |website=New York Times}}</ref>

Astrophysicist and [[Philosophy of Science|scientific philosopher]] [[Adam Becker]] criticizes Kurzweil's concept of human mind uploads to computers on the grounds that they are too fundamentally different and incompatible.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wood |first=Andrew Paul |date=May 17, 2025 |title=Mission Critical |journal=[[New Zealand Listener]] |pages=38–39}}</ref>

===Skepticism of exponential growth===
<!-- Modis specifically on "singularity": -->[[Theodore Modis]] holds the singularity cannot happen.<ref>Modis, Theodore (2020). “Forecasting the Growth of Complexity and Change—An Update”. Published in {{cite book |last1=Korotayev |first1=Andrey |title=The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures |last2=LePoire |first2=David (Eds.) |date=January 3, 2020 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-030-33730-8 |edition=1 |pages=620}} pp/ 101–104.</ref><ref name="modis2012">Modis, Theodore (2012). “Why the Singularity Cannot Happen”. Published in {{cite book |last1=Eden |first1=Amnon H. et al (Eds.) |url=http://www.growth-dynamics.com/articles/Singularity.pdf |title=Singularity Hypothesis |date=2012 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-642-32560-1 |location=New York |page=311}} pp. 311–339.</ref><ref name="modis2003">Modis, Theodore (May–June 2003). “[http://www.growth-dynamics.com/articles/futurist.pdf The Limits of Complexity and Change]”. The Futurist. 37 (3): 26–32.</ref> He claims the "technological singularity" and especially Kurzweil lack scientific rigor; Kurzweil is alleged to mistake the logistic function (S-function) for an exponential function, and to see a "knee" in an exponential function where there can in fact be no such thing.<ref name="modis2006"/> In a 2021 article, Modis wrote that no milestones—breaks in historical perspective comparable in importance to the Internet, DNA, the transistor, or nuclear energy—had been observed in the previous 20 years, while five of them would have been expected according to the exponential trend advocated by proponents of the technological singularity.<ref name="modis2022">{{Cite journal |last=Modis |first=Theodore |date=2022-03-01 |title=Links between entropy, complexity, and the technological singularity |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162521008921 |journal=Technological Forecasting and Social Change |language=en |volume=176 |article-number=121457 |doi=10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121457 |s2cid=245663426 |issn=0040-1625|arxiv=2410.10844 }}</ref>

AI researcher [[Jürgen Schmidhuber]] has said that the frequency of subjectively "notable events" appears to be approaching a 21st-century singularity, but cautioned readers to take such plots of subjective events with a grain of salt: perhaps differences in memory of recent and distant events create an illusion of accelerating change where none exists.<ref>{{Citation |last=Schmidhuber |first=Jürgen |title=New millennium AI and the convergence of history |year=2006 |arxiv=cs/0606081 |bibcode=2006cs........6081S}}.</ref>

[[Douglas Hofstadter|Hofstadter]] (2006) raises concern that Kurzweil is insufficiently rigorous, that an exponential tendency of technology is not a scientific law like one of physics, and that exponential curves have no "knees".<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhj6fDDnckE Trying to Muse Rationally About the Singularity Scenario] by Douglas Hofstadter, 2006, [https://web.archive.org/web/20170109020308/https://medium.com/@emergingtechnology/trying-to-muse-rationally-about-the-singularity-scenario-9c9db2eb9ece unauthorized transcript].</ref> Nonetheless, he did not rule out the singularity in principle in the distant future<ref name="ieee-lumi"/> and in light of [[ChatGPT]] and other recent advancements has revised his opinion significantly toward dramatic technological change in the near future.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Brooks |first=David |date=2023-07-13 |title=Opinion {{!}} 'Human Beings Are Soon Going to Be Eclipsed' |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/opinion/ai-chatgpt-consciousness-hofstadter.html |access-date=2023-08-02 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

Economist [[Robert J. Gordon]] points out that measured economic growth slowed around 1970 and slowed even further since the [[2008 financial crisis]], and argues that the economic data show no trace of a coming Singularity as imagined by [[I. J. Good]].<ref>[[William D. Nordhaus]], "Why Growth Will Fall" (a review of [[Robert J. Gordon]], ''The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War'', Princeton University Press, 2016, {{ISBN|978-0691147727}}), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIII, no. 13 (August 18, 2016), p. 68.</ref>

In addition to general criticisms of the singularity concept, several critics have raised issues with Kurzweil's iconic chart. One line of criticism is that a [[Log-log plot|log-log]] chart of this nature is inherently biased toward a straight-line result. Others identify selection bias in the points Kurzweil uses. For example, biologist [[PZ Myers]] points out that many of the early evolutionary "events" were picked arbitrarily.<ref name="PZMyers2009"/> Kurzweil has rebutted this by charting evolutionary events from 15 neutral sources and showing that they fit a straight line on [[:File:ParadigmShiftsFrr15Events.svg|a log-log chart]]. [[Kevin Kelly (editor)|Kelly]] (2006) argues that the way the Kurzweil chart is constructed, with the x-axis having time before the present, it always points to the singularity being "now", for any date on which one would construct such a chart, and shows this visually on Kurzweil's chart.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kelly |first=Kevin |date=2006 |title=The Singularity Is Always Near |url=https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-singularity/ |access-date=2023-06-14 |website=The Technium}}</ref>

===Technological limiting factors===
[[Martin Ford (author)|Martin Ford]]<ref name="ford2009"/> postulates a "technology paradox": most routine jobs could be automated with a level of technology inferior to that required for a singularity. This would cause massive unemployment and plummeting consumer demand, which would eliminate the incentive to invest in the technology required to bring about the singularity. Job displacement is no longer limited to the types of work traditionally considered "routine".<ref name="markoff2011"/>

<!-- Rate of technological innovation: -->[[Theodore Modis]]<ref name="modis2002"/> and [[Jonathan Huebner]]<ref name="huebner2005"/> argue that the rate of technological innovation has not only ceased to rise but is actually now declining. Evidence for this decline is that the rise in computer [[clock rate]]s is slowing, even while Moore's prediction of exponentially increasing circuit density continues to hold. This is due to excessive heat buildup from the chip, which cannot be dissipated quickly enough to prevent it from melting when operating at higher speeds. Advances in speed may be possible in the future by virtue of more power-efficient CPU designs and multi-cell processors.<ref name="krazit2006"/>

Microsoft co-founder [[Paul Allen]] has argued that there is a "complexity brake":<ref name="Allen2011"/> the more progress science makes toward understanding intelligence, the more difficult it becomes to make additional progress. A study of the number of patents shows that human creativity does not show accelerating returns, but in fact, as suggested by [[Joseph Tainter]] in ''The Collapse of Complex Societies'',<ref name="tainter1988"/> a law of [[diminishing returns]]. The number of patents per thousand peaked in the period from 1850 to 1900, and has been declining since.<ref name="huebner2005" /><!--[Previous comment: is this from 'Collapse of Complex Societies' or some other source? Perhaps this refers to Jonathan Huebner's patent analysis mentioned in the earlier paragraph? If so, would be better to integrate this part with that paragraph, since the earlier paragraph mentions that Huebner's analysis has been criticized whereas this paragraph just seems to present it as fact --> The growth of complexity eventually becomes self-limiting, and leads to a widespread "general systems collapse".

==Potential impacts==
Dramatic changes in the rate of economic growth have occurred in the past because of technological advancement. Based on population growth, the economy doubled every 250,000 years from the [[Paleolithic]] era until the [[Neolithic Revolution]]. The new agricultural economy doubled every 900 years, a remarkable increase. Since the [[Industrial Revolution]], the world's economic output has doubled every 15 years, 60 times faster than during the agricultural era. If the rise of superhuman intelligence causes a similar revolution, argues Robin Hanson, one would expect the economy to double at least quarterly and possibly weekly.<ref name="Hanson">{{Citation |last=Hanson |first=Robin |title=Economics Of The Singularity |date=1 June 2008 |work=IEEE Spectrum Special Report: The Singularity |url=https://www.spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/robotics-software/economics-of-the-singularity |access-date=2009-07-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811005825/http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/robotics-software/economics-of-the-singularity |archive-date=2011-08-11 |url-status=dead}} & [http://hanson.gmu.edu/longgrow.pdf Long-Term Growth As A Sequence of Exponential Modes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190527020444/https://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/robotics-software/economics-of-the-singularity|date=2019-05-27}}.</ref>

===Uncertainty and risk===
{{Further|Existential risk from artificial general intelligence}}
The term "technological singularity" reflects the idea that such change may happen suddenly and that it is difficult to predict how the resulting new world would operate.<ref name="positive-and-negative">{{Citation |last=Yudkowsky |first=Eliezer |title=Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk |journal=Global Catastrophic Risks |page=303 |year=2008 |editor-last=Bostrom |editor-first=Nick |url=http://singinst.org/AIRisk.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080807132337/http://www.singinst.org/AIRisk.pdf |archive-date=2008-08-07 |url-status=dead |publisher=Oxford University Press |bibcode=2008gcr..book..303Y |isbn=978-0-19-857050-9 |editor2-last=Cirkovic |editor2-first=Milan}}.</ref><ref name="theuncertainfuture"/> It is unclear whether an intelligence explosion resulting in a singularity would be beneficial or harmful, or even an [[Existential risk|existential threat]].<ref name="sandberg-bostrom2008"/><ref name="bostrom-risks"/> Because AI is a major factor in singularity risk, several organizations pursue a technical theory of aligning AI goal-systems with human values, including the [[Future of Humanity Institute]] (until 2024), the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]],<ref name="positive-and-negative"/> the [[Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence]], and the [[Future of Life Institute]].

Physicist [[Stephen Hawking]] said in 2014: "Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks."<ref name=hawking_2014/> Hawking believed that in the coming decades, AI could offer "incalculable benefits and risks" such as "technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand."<ref name=hawking_2014/> He suggested that artificial intelligence should be taken more seriously and that more should be done to prepare for the singularity:<ref name="hawking_2014">{{cite web |author=Hawking |first=Stephen |author-link=Stephen Hawking |date=1 May 2014 |title=Stephen Hawking: 'Transcendence looks at the implications of artificial intelligence – but are we taking AI seriously enough?' |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen-hawking-transcendence-looks-at-the-implications-of-artificial-intelligence--but-are-we-taking-ai-seriously-enough-9313474.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925153716/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen-hawking-transcendence-looks-at-the-implications-of-artificial-intelligence--but-are-we-taking-ai-seriously-enough-9313474.html |archive-date=25 September 2015 |access-date=May 5, 2014 |work=[[The Independent]]}}</ref>{{blockquote|So, facing possible futures of incalculable benefits and risks, the experts are surely doing everything possible to ensure the best outcome, right? Wrong. If a superior alien civilisation sent us a message saying, "We'll arrive in a few decades," would we just reply, "OK, call us when you get here{{snd}}we'll leave the lights on"? Probably not{{snd}}but this is more or less what is happening with AI.}}

{{Harvtxt|Berglas|2008}} claims that there is no direct evolutionary motivation for AI to be friendly to humans. Evolution has no inherent tendency to produce outcomes valued by humans, and there is little reason to expect an arbitrary optimisation process to promote an outcome desired by humankind, rather than inadvertently leading to an AI behaving in a way not intended by its creators.<ref name="nickbostrom8">Nick Bostrom, [http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/ai.html "Ethical Issues in Advanced Artificial Intelligence"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181008090224/http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/ai.html|date=2018-10-08}}, in ''Cognitive, Emotive and Ethical Aspects of Decision Making in Humans and in Artificial Intelligence'', Vol. 2, ed. I. Smit et al., International Institute of Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics, 2003, pp. 12–17.</ref><ref name="singinst">[[Eliezer Yudkowsky]]. [http://singinst.org/upload/artificial-intelligence-risk.pdf Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120611190606/http://singinst.org/upload/artificial-intelligence-risk.pdf|date=2012-06-11}}. Draft for a publication in ''Global Catastrophic Risk'' from August 31, 2006, retrieved July 18, 2011 (PDF file).</ref><ref name="singinst9">{{Cite web |url=http://www.singinst.org/blog/2007/06/11/the-stamp-collecting-device/ |title=The Stamp Collecting Device |first=Nick |last=Hay |access-date=2010-08-21 |archive-date=2012-06-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120617191319/http://singinst.org/blog/2007/06/11/the-stamp-collecting-device/ |url-status=dead |date=June 11, 2007 |publisher=Singularity Institute |work=SIAI Blog}}</ref> [[Anders Sandberg]] has elaborated on this, addressing various common counter-arguments.<ref name="aleph">{{Cite web |title=Why we should fear the Paperclipper |date=February 14, 2011 |first=Anders |last=Sandberg |work=Andart |url=http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2011/02/why_we_should_fear_the_paperclipper.html |access-date=2023-06-14}}</ref> AI researcher [[Hugo de Garis]] suggests that artificial intelligences may simply eliminate the human race [[instrumental convergence|for access to scarce resources]],<ref name="selfawaresystems.com" /><ref name="selfawaresystems"/> and humans would be powerless to stop them.<ref name="forbes">{{Cite web |last=de Garis |first=Hugo |title=The Coming Artilect War |url=https://www.forbes.com/2009/06/18/cosmist-terran-cyborgist-opinions-contributors-artificial-intelligence-09-hugo-de-garis.html  |website=Forbes |date=June 22, 2009 |access-date=2023-06-14 |language=en}}</ref> Alternatively, AIs developed under evolutionary pressure to promote their own survival could outcompete humanity.<ref name="nickbostrom7" />

{{Harvtxt|Bostrom|2002}} discusses human extinction scenarios, and lists superintelligence as a possible cause:
{{blockquote|When we create the first superintelligent entity, we might make a mistake and give it goals that lead it to annihilate humankind, assuming its enormous intellectual advantage gives it the power to do so. For example, we could mistakenly elevate a subgoal to the status of a supergoal. We tell it to solve a mathematical problem, and it complies by turning all the matter in the solar system into a giant calculating device, in the process killing the person who asked the question.}}

According to [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]], a significant problem in AI safety is that unfriendly AI is likely to be much easier to create than friendly AI. Both require large advances in recursive optimisation process design, but friendly AI also requires the ability to make goal structures invariant under self-improvement (or the AI could transform itself into something unfriendly) and a goal structure that aligns with human values and does not automatically destroy the human race. An unfriendly AI, on the other hand, can optimize for an arbitrary goal structure, which does not need to be invariant under self-modification.<ref name="singinst12">{{Cite web |url=http://singinst.org/upload/CEV.html |title=Coherent Extrapolated Volition |first=Eliezer S. |last=Yudkowsky |date=May 2004 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100815055725/http://singinst.org/upload/CEV.html |archivedate=2010-08-15 |url-status=dead}}</ref> {{harvtxt|Bill Hibbard|2014}} proposes an AI design that avoids several dangers, including self-delusion,<ref name="JAGI2012">{{Citation| journal=Journal of Artificial General Intelligence| year=2012| volume=3| issue=1| title=Model-Based Utility Functions| first=Bill| last=Hibbard| postscript=.| doi=10.2478/v10229-011-0013-5| page=1|arxiv = 1111.3934 |bibcode = 2012JAGI....3....1H | s2cid=8434596}}</ref> unintended instrumental actions,<ref name="selfawaresystems"/><ref name="AGI-12a">[http://agi-conference.org/2012/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/paper_56.pdf  Avoiding Unintended AI Behaviors.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130629072904/http://agi-conference.org/2012/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/paper_56.pdf |date=2013-06-29 }} Bill Hibbard. 2012 proceedings of the Fifth Conference on Artificial General Intelligence, eds. Joscha Bach, Ben Goertzel and Matthew Ikle. [http://intelligence.org/2012/12/19/december-2012-newsletter/ This paper won the Machine Intelligence Research Institute's 2012 Turing Prize for the Best AGI Safety Paper] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215095130/https://intelligence.org/2012/12/19/december-2012-newsletter/ |date=2021-02-15 }}.</ref> and corruption of the reward generator.<ref name="AGI-12a"/> He also discusses social impacts of AI<ref name="JET2008">{{Citation| url=http://jetpress.org/v17/hibbard.htm| journal=Journal of Evolution and Technology| year=2008| volume=17| title=The Technology of Mind and a New Social Contract| first=Bill| last=Hibbard| postscript=.| access-date=2013-01-05| archive-date=2021-02-15| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215095140/http://jetpress.org/v17/hibbard.htm| url-status=live}}</ref> and testing AI.<ref name="AGI-12b">[http://agi-conference.org/2012/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/paper_57.pdf  Decision Support for Safe AI Design|.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215095047/http://agi-conference.org/2012/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/paper_57.pdf |date=2021-02-15 }} Bill Hibbard. 2012 proceedings of the Fifth Conference on Artificial General Intelligence, eds. Joscha Bach, Ben Goertzel and Matthew Ikle.</ref> His 2001 book ''[[Super-Intelligent Machines]]'' advocates public education about AI and public control over AI. It also proposes a simple design that is vulnerable to corruption of the reward generator.[[File:Major Evolutionary Transitions digital.jpg|thumb|upright=1.7|Schematic Timeline of Information and Replicators in the Biosphere: Gillings et al.'s "[[The Major Transitions in Evolution|major evolutionary transitions]]" in information processing.<ref name="InfoBiosphere2016" />]]
===Next step of sociobiological evolution===
{{Further|Sociocultural evolution}}
[[File:Biological vs. digital information.jpg|thumb|Amount of digital information worldwide (5{{e|21}} bytes) versus human genome information worldwide (10<sup>19</sup> bytes) in 2014<ref name="InfoBiosphere2016" />]]A 2016 ''[[Trends in Ecology & Evolution]]'' article argues that humanity is in the midst of a [[The Major Transitions in Evolution|major evolutionary transition]] that merges technology, biology, and society. This is due to digital technology infiltrating the fabric of human society to a degree of often life-sustaining dependence. The article says, "humans already embrace fusions of biology and technology. We spend most of our waking time communicating through digitally mediated channels [...] we trust artificial intelligence with our lives through [[Anti-lock braking system|antilock braking in cars]] and [[autopilot]]s in planes... With one in three courtships leading to marriages in America beginning online, digital algorithms are also taking a role in human pair bonding and reproduction".<ref name="InfoBiosphere2016" />

The article further argues that from the perspective of [[evolution]], several previous [[The Major Transitions in Evolution|Major Transitions in Evolution]] have transformed life through innovations in information storage and replication ([[RNA]], [[DNA]], [[multicellularity]], and culture and language). In the current stage of life's evolution, the carbon-based biosphere has generated a system (humans) capable of creating technology that will result in a comparable [[The Major Transitions in Evolution|evolutionary transition]].<ref name="InfoBiosphere2016" />

The digital information created by humans has reached a similar magnitude to biological information in the biosphere. Since the 1980s, the quantity of digital information stored has doubled about every 2.5 years, reaching about 5 [[zettabyte]]s in 2014 (5{{e|21}} bytes).<ref>{{cite web |author=Hilbert |first=Martin |title=Information Quantity |url=http://www.martinhilbert.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Hilbert2017_ReferenceWorkEntry_InformationQuantity.pdf}}</ref>

In biological terms, there are 7.2&nbsp;billion humans on the planet, each with a genome of 6.2&nbsp;billion nucleotides. Since one byte can encode four nucleotide pairs, the individual genomes of every human could be encoded by approximately 1{{e|19}} bytes. The digital realm stored 500 times more information than this in 2014 (see figure). The total amount of DNA in all the cells on Earth is estimated to be about 5.3{{e|37}} base pairs, equivalent to 1.325{{e|37}} bytes of information. If growth in digital storage continues at its current rate of 30–38% compound annual growth per year,<ref name="HilbertLopez2011" /> it will rival the total information content in all the DNA in all the cells on Earth in about 110 years. This would represent a doubling of the amount of information stored in the biosphere in just 150 years.<ref name="InfoBiosphere2016">{{Cite journal|url=http://escholarship.org/uc/item/38f4b791|doi=10.1016/j.tree.2015.12.013|pmid=26777788|title=Information in the Biosphere: Biological and Digital Worlds|journal=Trends in Ecology & Evolution|volume=31|issue=3|pages=180–189|year=2016|last1=Kemp|first1=D. J.|last2=Hilbert|first2=M.|last3=Gillings|first3=M. R.|bibcode=2016TEcoE..31..180G |s2cid=3561873 |access-date=2016-05-24|archive-date=2016-06-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604174011/http://escholarship.org/uc/item/38f4b791|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Implications for human society===
{{further|Artificial intelligence in fiction}}
In 2009, under the auspices of the [[Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence]] (AAAI), [[Eric Horvitz]] chaired a meeting of leading computer scientists, artificial intelligence researchers, and roboticists at the Asilomar conference center in Pacific Grove, California. The goal was to discuss the impact of the possibility that robots could become self-sufficient and able to make their own decisions. They discussed the extent to which computers and robots might acquire [[autonomy]], and to what degree they could use such abilities to pose threats or hazards.<ref name="nytimes july09" />

Some machines are programmed with various forms of semi-autonomy, including the ability to locate their own power sources and choose targets to attack with weapons. Also, some [[computer virus]]es can evade elimination and, according to scientists in attendance, could therefore be said to have reached a "cockroach" stage of machine intelligence. The conference attendees noted that self-awareness as depicted in science fiction is probably unlikely, but that other potential hazards and pitfalls exist.<ref name="nytimes july09">{{cite news|last=Markoff|first=John|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/science/26robot.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper|title=Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man|work=The New York Times|date=26 July 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170701084625/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/science/26robot.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper|archive-date=2017-07-01}}</ref>

Frank S. Robinson predicts that once humans achieve a machine with the intelligence of a human, scientific and technological problems will be tackled and solved with brainpower far superior to that of humans. He notes that artificial systems are able to share data more directly than humans, and predicts that this will result in a global network of super-intelligence that dwarfs human capability.<ref name=":0">{{cite magazine |last=Robinson |first=Frank S. |title=The Human Future: Upgrade or Replacement? |magazine=[[The Humanist]] |date=27 June 2013 |url=https://thehumanist.com/magazine/july-august-2013/features/the-human-future-upgrade-or-replacement |access-date=1 May 2020 |archive-date=15 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215095131/https://thehumanist.com/magazine/july-august-2013/features/the-human-future-upgrade-or-replacement |url-status=live }}</ref> Robinson also discusses how vastly different the future would look after such an intelligence explosion.

==Hard or soft takeoff==
[[File:Recursive self-improvement.svg|thumb|upright=1.6|In this sample recursive self-improvement scenario, humans modifying an AI's architecture would be able to double its performance every three years through, for example, 30 generations before exhausting all feasible improvements (left). If instead the AI is smart enough to modify its own architecture as well as human researchers can, its time required to complete a redesign halves with each generation, and it progresses all 30 feasible generations in six years (right).<ref name="yudkowsky-global-risk">[[Eliezer Yudkowsky]]. "Artificial intelligence as a positive and negative factor in global risk." Global catastrophic risks (2008).</ref>]]

In a hard takeoff scenario, an artificial superintelligence rapidly self-improves, "taking control" of the world (perhaps in a matter of hours), too quickly for significant human-initiated error correction or for a gradual tuning of the agent's goals. In a soft takeoff, the AI still becomes far more powerful than humanity, but at a human-like pace (perhaps on the order of decades), on a timescale where ongoing human interaction and correction can effectively steer its development.<ref>Bugaj, Stephan Vladimir, and Ben Goertzel. "Five ethical imperatives and their implications for human-AGI interaction." Dynamical Psychology (2007).</ref><ref>Sotala, Kaj, and Roman V. Yampolskiy. "Responses to catastrophic AGI risk: a survey." Physica Scripta 90.1 (2014): 018001.</ref>

[[Ramez Naam]] argues against a hard takeoff. He has pointed out that we already see recursive self-improvement by superintelligences, such as corporations. [[Intel]], for example, has "the collective brainpower of tens of thousands of humans and probably millions of CPU cores to... design better CPUs!" But this has not led to a hard takeoff; rather, it has led to a soft takeoff in the form of [[Moore's law]].<ref name=Naam2014Further>{{cite web|last=Naam|first=Ramez|title=The Singularity Is Further Than It Appears|url=http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/02/the-singularity-is-further-tha.html|access-date=16 May 2014|year=2014|archive-date=17 May 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140517114905/http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/02/the-singularity-is-further-tha.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Naam further points out that the computational complexity of higher intelligence may be much greater than linear, such that "creating a mind of intelligence 2 is probably ''more'' than twice as hard as creating a mind of intelligence 1."<ref name="Naam2014Ascend">{{cite web |last=Naam |first=Ramez |year=2014 |title=Why AIs Won't Ascend in the Blink of an Eye – Some Math |url=http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/02/why-ais-wont-ascend-in-blink-of-an-eye.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140517115830/http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/02/why-ais-wont-ascend-in-blink-of-an-eye.html |archive-date=17 May 2014 |access-date=16 May 2014}}</ref>

[[J. Storrs Hall]] believes that "many of the more commonly seen scenarios for overnight hard takeoff are circular{{snd}}they seem to assume hyperhuman capabilities at the ''starting point'' of the self-improvement process" in order for an AI to be able to make the dramatic, domain-general improvements required for takeoff. Hall suggests that rather than recursively self-improving its hardware, software, and infrastructure all on its own, a fledgling AI would be better off specializing in one area where it was most effective and then buying the remaining components on the marketplace, because the quality of products on the marketplace continually improves, and the AI would have a hard time keeping up with the cutting-edge technology used by the rest of the world.<ref name=Hall2008>{{cite journal|last=Hall|first=J. Storrs|title=Engineering Utopia|journal=Artificial General Intelligence, 2008: Proceedings of the First AGI Conference|date=2008|pages=460–467|url=http://www.agiri.org/takeoff_hall.pdf|access-date=16 May 2014|archive-date=1 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141201201504/http://www.agiri.org/takeoff_hall.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

Ben Goertzel agrees with Hall's suggestion that a new human-level AI would do well to use its intelligence to accumulate wealth. The AI's talents might inspire companies and governments to disperse its software throughout society. Goertzel is skeptical of a hard five-minute takeoff but speculates that a takeoff from human to superhuman level on the order of five years is reasonable. He calls this a "semihard takeoff".<ref name="Goertzel2014">{{cite news|last1=Goertzel|first1=Ben|title=Superintelligence — Semi-hard Takeoff Scenarios|url=http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/09/26/superintelligence-semi-hard-takeoff-scenarios/|access-date=25 October 2014|agency=h+ Magazine|date=26 Sep 2014|archive-date=25 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141025053847/http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/09/26/superintelligence-semi-hard-takeoff-scenarios/|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Max More]] disagrees, arguing that if there were only a few superfast human-level AIs, that they would not radically change the world, as they would still depend on other people to get things done and would still have human cognitive constraints. Even if all superfast AIs worked on intelligence augmentation, it is unclear why they would do better in a discontinuous way than existing human cognitive scientists at producing superhuman intelligence, although the rate of progress would increase. More further argues that superintelligence would not transform the world overnight: it would need to engage with existing, slow human systems to have physical impact on the world. "The need for collaboration, for organization, and for putting ideas into physical changes will ensure that all the old rules are not thrown out overnight or even within years."<ref name=More>{{cite web|last1=More|first1=Max|title=Singularity Meets Economy|url=http://hanson.gmu.edu/vc.html#more|access-date=10 November 2014|archive-date=28 August 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090828023928/http://hanson.gmu.edu/vc.html#more|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Relation to immortality and aging ==
{{Main|Biological machine}}

[[K. Eric Drexler|Eric Drexler]], one of the founders of [[nanotechnology]], theorized in 1986 the possibility of cell repair devices, including ones operating within cells and using as yet hypothetical [[biological machine]]s, allowing [[Immortality#Technological_immortality,_biological_machines,_and_"swallowing_the_doctor" |immortality via nanotechnology]].<ref name="drexler1986"/> According to [[Richard Feynman]], his former graduate student and collaborator [[Albert Hibbs]] originally suggested to him (circa 1959) the idea of a ''medical'' use for Feynman's theoretical micromachines. Hibbs suggested that certain repair machines might one day be shrunk to the point that it would, in theory, be possible to (as Feynman put it) "[[Molecular machine#Biological|swallow the doctor]]". The idea was incorporated into Feynman's 1959 essay ''[[There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom]].''<ref name="feynman1959">{{cite web|url = http://www.its.caltech.edu/~feynman/plenty.html|title = There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom|first = Richard P.|last = Feynman |author-link = Richard Feynman|date = December 1959|url-status = dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100211190050/http://www.its.caltech.edu/~feynman/plenty.html|archive-date = 2010-02-11}}</ref>

In 1988, Moravec predicted [[mind uploading]], the possibility of "uploading" a human mind into a human-like robot, achieving quasi-immortality by extreme longevity via transfer of the human mind between successive new robots as the old ones wear out; beyond that, he predicts later exponential acceleration of subjective experience of time leading to a subjective sense of immortality.<ref name="moravec1988" />

In 2005, Kurzweil suggested that medical advances would allow people to protect their bodies from the effects of aging, making [[Life extension|life expectancy limitless]]. He argues that technological advances in medicine would allow us to continuously repair and replace defective components in our bodies, prolonging life to an undetermined age.<ref name="kurzweil2005-215"/> Kurzweil buttresses his argument by discussing current bio-engineering advances. He suggests [[somatic gene therapy]]; after synthetic viruses with specific genetic information, the next step is to apply this technology to gene therapy, replacing human DNA with synthesized genes.<ref>''The Singularity Is Near'', p.&nbsp;216.</ref>

Beyond merely extending the operational life of the physical body, [[Jaron Lanier]] argues for a form of immortality called "Digital Ascension" that involves "people dying in the flesh and being uploaded into a computer and remaining conscious."<ref>{{cite book |last=Lanier |first=Jaron |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780307269645 |title=You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto |publisher=[[Alfred A. Knopf]] |year=2010 |isbn=978-0307269645 |location=New York, New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780307269645/page/26 26] |author-link=Jaron Lanier |url-access=registration}}</ref> This concept was the central to the television series ''[[Upload (TV series)|Upload]]''.

==History of the concept==
A paper by Mahendra Prasad, published in ''[[AI Magazine]]'', asserts that the 18th-century mathematician [[Marquis de Condorcet]] first hypothesized and mathematically modeled an intelligence explosion and its effects on humanity.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Prasad|first=Mahendra|year=2019|title=Nicolas de Condorcet and the First Intelligence Explosion Hypothesis|journal=AI Magazine|volume=40|issue=1|pages=29–33|doi=10.1609/aimag.v40i1.2855|doi-access=free}}</ref>

An early description of the idea was made in [[John W. Campbell]]'s 1932 short story "The Last Evolution".<ref>{{Cite magazine |author=Campbell, Jr. |first=John W. |date=August 1932 |title=The Last Evolution |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27462/27462-h/27462-h.htm |magazine=Amazing Stories |publisher=Project Gutenberg}}</ref>

In his 1958 obituary for [[John von Neumann]], Ulam recalled a conversation with him about the "ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue."<ref name="ulam1958"/>

In 1965, Good wrote his essay postulating an "intelligence explosion" of recursive self-improvement of a machine intelligence.<ref name="good1965"/><ref name="good1965-stat"/>

In 1977, [[Hans Moravec]] wrote an article with unclear publishing status where he envisioned a development of self-improving thinking machines, a creation of "super-consciousness, the synthesis of terrestrial life, and perhaps jovian and martian life as well, constantly improving and extending itself, spreading outwards from the solar system, converting non-life into mind."<ref>Moravec, Hans (1977). [https://frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1977/smart Intelligent machines: How to get there from here and What to do afterwards] ([[wikidata:Q115765098|wikidata]]).</ref><ref name="smart1999"/> The article describes the human mind uploading later covered in Moravec (1988). The machines are expected to reach human level and then improve themselves beyond that ("Most significantly of all, they [the machines] can be put to work as programmers and engineers, with the task of optimizing the software and hardware which make them what they are. The successive generations of machines produced this way will be increasingly smarter and more cost effective.") Humans will no longer be needed, and their abilities will be overtaken by the machines: "In the long run the sheer physical inability of humans to keep up with these rapidly evolving progeny of our minds will ensure that the ratio of people to machines approaches zero, and that a direct descendant of our culture, but not our genes, inherits the universe." While the word "singularity" is not used, the notion of human-level thinking machines thereafter improving themselves beyond human level is there. In this view, there is no intelligence explosion in the sense of a very rapid intelligence increase once human equivalence is reached. An updated version of the article was published in 1979 in [[Analog Science Fiction and Fact]].<ref>Moravec, Hans (1979). [https://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1978/analog.1978.html Today's Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221219111328/https://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1978/analog.1978.html |date=19 December 2022 }}, [[wikidata:Q115765733|wikidata]].</ref><ref name="smart1999"/>

In 1981, [[Stanisław Lem]] published his [[science fiction]] novel ''[[Golem XIV]]''. It describes a military AI computer (Golem XIV) that obtains consciousness and starts to increase its intelligence, moving toward personal technological singularity. Golem XIV was originally created to aid its builders in fighting wars, but as its intelligence advances to a much higher level than that of humans, it stops being interested in the military requirements because it finds them lacking internal logical consistency.

[[Vernor Vinge]] addressed Good's intelligence explosion in the January 1983 issue of ''[[Omni (magazine)|Omni]]'' magazine. Vinge seems to have been the first to use the term "singularity" (although not "technological singularity") in a way specifically tied to the creation of intelligent machines:<ref name="dooling2008-88"/><ref name="smart1999"/>
{{blockquote|We will soon create intelligences greater than our own. When this happens, human history will have reached a kind of singularity, an intellectual transition as impenetrable as the knotted space-time at the center of a black hole, and the world will pass far beyond our understanding. This singularity, I believe, already haunts a number of science-fiction writers. It makes realistic extrapolation to an interstellar future impossible. To write a story set more than a century hence, one needs a nuclear war in between ... so that the world remains intelligible.}}

In 1985, in "The Time Scale of Artificial Intelligence", AI researcher [[Ray Solomonoff]] articulated mathematically the related notion of what he called an "infinity point": if a research community of human-level self-improving AIs take four years to double their own speed, then two years, then one year and so on, their capabilities increase infinitely in finite time.<ref name="chalmers2010" /><ref name="solomonoff1985"/>

In 1986, Vinge published ''[[Marooned in Realtime]]'', a science-fiction novel where a few remaining humans traveling forward in the future have survived an unknown extinction event that might well be a singularity. In a short afterword, Vinge writes that an actual technological singularity would not be the end of the human species: "of course it seems very unlikely that the Singularity would be a clean vanishing of the human race. (On the other hand, such a vanishing is the timelike analog of the silence we find all across the sky.)".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vinge |first=Vernor |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H1NOwjENGOkC&dq=%22Singularity%22&pg=PA271 |title=Marooned in Realtime |date=2004-10-01 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-1-4299-1512-0 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Pringle |first=David |date=1986-09-28 |title=Time and Time Again |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1986/09/28/time-and-time-again/1426eb5b-74bb-4652-9e38-1bbca5c76226/ |access-date=2021-07-06 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref>

In 1988, Vinge used the phrase "technological singularity" in the short-story collection ''Threats and Other Promises'', writing in the introduction to his story "The Whirligig of Time": ''Barring a worldwide catastrophe, I believe that technology will achieve our wildest dreams, and'' soon. ''When we raise our own intelligence and that of our creations, we are no longer in a world of human-sized characters. At that point we have fallen into a technological "black hole", a technological singularity.''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vinge |first=Vernor |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vX8gAQAAIAAJ&q=%22At+that+point+we+have+fallen+into+a+technological%22 |title=Threats and Other Promises |date=1988 |publisher=Baen |isbn=978-0-671-69790-7 |language=en}}</ref>

In 1988, [[Hans Moravec]] published ''Mind Children'',<ref name="moravec1988"/> in which he predicted human-level intelligence in supercomputers by 2010, self-improving intelligent machines far surpassing human intelligence later, human mind uploading into human-like robots later, intelligent machines leaving humans behind, and space colonization. He did not mention "singularity", though, and he did not speak of a rapid explosion of intelligence immediately after the human level is achieved. Nonetheless, the overall singularity tenor is there in predicting both human-level artificial intelligence and further artificial intelligence far surpassing humans later.

Vinge's 1993 article "The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era",<ref name="vinge1993" /> spread widely on the internet and helped popularize the idea.<ref name="dooling2008-89"/> This article contains the statement, "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended." Vinge argues that science-fiction authors cannot write realistic post-singularity characters who surpass the human intellect, as the thoughts of such an intellect is beyond humans' ability to express.<ref name="vinge1993" />

[[Marvin Minsky|Minsky]]'s 1994 article says robots will "inherit the Earth", possibly with the use of nanotechnology, and proposes to think of robots as human "mind children", drawing the analogy from Moravec. The rhetorical effect of the analogy is that if humans are fine to pass the world to their biological children, they should be equally fine to pass it to robots, their "mind children". Per Minsky, "we could design our 'mind-children' to think a million times faster than we do. To such a being, half a minute might seem as long as one of our years, and each hour as long as an entire human lifetime." The feature of the singularity present in Minsky is the development of superhuman artificial intelligence ("million times faster"), but there is no talk of sudden intelligence explosion, self-improving thinking machines, or unpredictability beyond any specific event, and the word "singularity" is not used.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Will Robots Inherit the Earth? |url=https://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/sciam.inherit.html |access-date=2023-06-14 |website=web.media.mit.edu}}</ref>

[[Frank J. Tipler|Tipler]]'s 1994 book ''[[The Physics of Immortality (book)|The Physics of Immortality]]'' predicts a future where super–intelligent machines build enormously powerful computers, people are "emulated" in computers, life reaches every galaxy, and people achieve immortality when they reach [[Omega Point]].<ref>{{cite journal | last=Oppy | first=Graham | title=Colonizing the galaxies | journal=Sophia | publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC | volume=39 | issue=2 | year=2000 | issn=0038-1527 | doi=10.1007/bf02822399 | pages=117–142 | s2cid=170919647 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226020169}}</ref> There is no talk of Vingean "singularity" or sudden intelligence explosion, but intelligence much greater than human is there, as well as immortality.

In 2000, [[Bill Joy]], a prominent technologist and a co-founder of [[Sun Microsystems]], voiced concern over the potential dangers of robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology.<ref name="Joy2000"/>

In 2005, Kurzweil published ''[[The Singularity Is Near]]''. Kurzweil's publicity campaign included an appearance on ''[[The Daily Show with Jon Stewart]]''.<ref name="episode2006"/>

From 2006 to 2012, an annual [[Singularity Summit]] conference was organized by [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]], founded by [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]].

In 2007, Yudkowsky suggested that many of the varied definitions that have been assigned to "singularity" are mutually incompatible rather than mutually supporting.<ref name="yudkowsky2007"/><ref>Sandberg, Anders. "An overview of models of technological singularity." Roadmaps to AGI and the Future of AGI Workshop, Lugano, Switzerland, March. Vol. 8. 2010.</ref> For example, Kurzweil extrapolates current technological trajectories past the arrival of self-improving AI or superhuman intelligence, which Yudkowsky argues represents a tension with both I. J. Good's proposed discontinuous upswing in intelligence and Vinge's thesis on unpredictability.<ref name="yudkowsky2007"/>

In 2009, Kurzweil and [[X-Prize]] founder [[Peter Diamandis]] announced the establishment of [[Singularity University]], a nonaccredited private institute whose mission is "to educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity's grand challenges."<ref name="singularityu"/> Funded by companies such as [[Google]],<ref>{{cite news |last=Vance |first=Ashlee |author-link=Ashlee Vance |date=June 12, 2010 |title=Merely Human? That's So Yesterday |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/business/13sing.html?pagewanted=all |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161020143916/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/business/13sing.html?pagewanted=all |archive-date=October 20, 2016 |access-date=February 25, 2017 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> [[Autodesk]],<ref name="BBC">{{Cite web |date=2013-12-03 |title=Singularity University plots hi-tech future for humans |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-25000753 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225194701/https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-25000753 |archive-date=2022-12-25 |access-date=2022-12-05 |website=[[BBC News]]}}</ref> and [[ePlanet Ventures]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kenrick |first=Chris |date=2012-08-17 |title=Where science fiction meets reality |url=https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2012/08/17/where-science-fiction-meets-reality |access-date=2022-12-05 |website=[[Palo Alto Weekly]]}}</ref> the organization runs an annual ten-week graduate program as well as smaller "executive" courses.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cadwalladr |first=Carole |date=2012-04-29 |title=Singularity University: meet the people who are building our future |url=http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/29/singularity-university-technology-future-thinkers |access-date=2022-12-05 |website=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>

==In politics==
In 2007, the Joint Economic Committee of the [[United States Congress]] released a report about the future of nanotechnology. It predicts significant technological and political changes in the midterm future, including possible technological singularity.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vyp1AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA375|title=Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society|first=David H.|last=Guston|date=14 July 2010|publisher=SAGE Publications|isbn=978-1-4522-6617-6|access-date=4 November 2016|archive-date=15 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215095105/https://books.google.com/books?id=vyp1AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA375|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/20120213_TheFutureisComingSoonerThanYouThink.pdf | title=Nanotechnology: The Future is Coming Sooner Than You Think | publisher=Joint Economic Committee United States Congress| date=March 2007 | access-date=2012-04-29 | archive-date=2021-02-15 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215095048/http://www.thenewatlantis.com/wp-content/uploads/legacy-pdfs/20120213_TheFutureisComingSoonerThanYouThink.pdf | url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="treder2007">{{cite web|url=http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2007/03/congress_and_th.html|title=Congress and the Singularity |work=Responsible Nanotechnology |first=Mike|last=Treder|date=March 31, 2007|access-date=2016-11-04|archive-date=2007-04-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070407031516/https://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2007/03/congress_and_th.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Former [[President of the United States]] [[Barack Obama]] spoke about singularity in his interview to ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' in 2016:<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito-interview/|title=Barack Obama Talks AI, Robo Cars, and the Future of the World|first=Scott|last=Dadich|magazine=Wired|date=12 October 2016|access-date=4 November 2016|archive-date=3 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171203142607/https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito-interview/|url-status=live}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|text=One thing that we haven't talked about too much, and I just want to go back to, is we really have to think through the economic implications. Because most people aren't spending a lot of time right now worrying about singularity—they are worrying about "Well, is my job going to be replaced by a machine?"}}

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Technology}}
* {{annotated link|Artificial consciousness}}
* {{annotated link|Ephemeralization}}
* {{annotated link|Global brain}}
* {{annotated link|Technological revolution}}
* {{annotated link|Technophobia}}
** {{annotated link|Neo-Luddism}}

== References ==
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<ref name="Joy2000">{{Citation | first=Bill | last=Joy | author-link=Bill Joy | title=Why The Future Doesn't Need Us | magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired Magazine]] | volume=8 | date=April 2000 | issue=4 | url=https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/ | access-date=2007-08-07 | isbn=978-0-670-03249-5 | publisher=Viking Adult | archive-date=2009-02-05 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090205150859/http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html | url-status=live |quote=Our most powerful 21st-century technologies – robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech – are threatening to make humans an endangered species.}}</ref>
<ref name="modis2002">Modis, Theodore (2002) [http://www.growth-dynamics.com/articles/Forecasting_Complexity.pdf "Forecasting the Growth of Complexity and Change"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215095052/http://www.growth-dynamics.com/articles/Forecasting_Complexity.pdf |date=2021-02-15 }}, ''Technological Forecasting & Social Change'', 69, No 4, 2002, pp. 377 – 404</ref>
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<ref name="kurzweil2005-215">Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, p. 215. Penguin Group, 2005.</ref>
<ref name="kurzweil2005">Ray Kurzweil, ''The Singularity Is Near'', Penguin Group, 2005.</ref>
<ref name="kurzweil2005-9">Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, p. 9. Penguin Group, 2005</ref>
<ref name="kurzweil2005-135136">Ray Kurzweil, ''The Singularity Is Near'', pp. 135–136. Penguin Group, 2005.
"So we will be producing about 10<sup>26</sup> to 10<sup>29</sup> cps of nonbiological computation per year in the early 2030s. This is roughly equal to our estimate for the capacity of all living biological human intelligence ... This state of computation in the early 2030s will not represent the Singularity, however, because it does not yet correspond to a profound expansion of our intelligence. By the mid-2040s, however, that one thousand dollars' worth of computation will be equal to 10<sup>26</sup> cps, so the intelligence created per year (at a total cost of about $10<sup>12</sup>) will be about one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today. That ''will'' indeed represent a profound change, and it is for that reason that I set the date for the Singularity—representing a profound and disruptive transformation in human capability—as 2045."</ref>
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* {{Citation |first=Anthony |last=Berglas |title=Artificial Intelligence will Kill our Grandchildren |year=2008 |url=http://berglas.org/Articles/AIKillGrandchildren/AIKillGrandchildren.html |access-date=2008-06-13 |archive-date=2014-07-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140723053223/http://berglas.org/Articles/AIKillGrandchildren/AIKillGrandchildren.html |url-status=live}}
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{{refend}}

==Further reading==
* [[Oliver Krüger|Krüger, Oliver]], ''Virtual Immortality. God, Evolution, and the Singularity in Post- and Transhumanism.'', Bielefeld: transcript 2021. {{ISBN|978-3-8376-5059-4}}.
* [[Gary Marcus|Marcus, Gary]], "Am I Human?: Researchers need new ways to distinguish [[artificial intelligence]] from the natural kind", ''[[Scientific American]]'', vol. 316, no. 3 (March 2017), pp.&nbsp;58–63. ''Multiple'' tests of [[artificial intelligence|artificial-intelligence]] efficacy are needed because, "just as there is no single test of [[Athletics (physical culture)|athletic]] prowess, there cannot be one ultimate test of intelligence." One such test, a "Construction Challenge", would test perception and physical action—"two important elements of intelligent behavior that were entirely absent from the original [[Turing test]]." Another proposal has been to give machines the same standardized tests of science and other disciplines that schoolchildren take. A so far insuperable stumbling block to artificial intelligence is an incapacity for reliable [[disambiguation]]. "[V]irtually every sentence [that people generate] is [[ambiguity|ambiguous]], often in multiple ways." A prominent example is known as the "pronoun disambiguation problem": a machine has no way of determining to whom or what a [[pronoun]] in a sentence—such as "he", "she" or "it"—refers.

== External links ==
{{Spoken Wikipedia|En-Technological_singularity-article.ogg|date=2018-11-03}}
* [https://www.britannica.com/technology/singularity-technology singularity {{!}} technology], britannica.com
* [https://edoras.sdsu.edu/~vinge/misc/singularity.html The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era] (on Vernor Vinge's web site, retrieved Jul 2019)
* [https://intelligence.org/ie-faq/ Intelligence Explosion FAQ] by the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]]
* [http://bootstrappingartificialintelligence.fr/WordPress3/ Blog on bootstrapping artificial intelligence] by [[Jacques Pitrat]]
* ''[http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/03/07/why-an-intelligence-explosion-is-probable/ Why an Intelligence Explosion is Probable]'' (Mar 2011)
* ''[https://medium.com/@francois.chollet/the-impossibility-of-intelligence-explosion-5be4a9eda6ec Why an Intelligence Explosion is Impossible]'' (Nov 2017)
* ''[https://scifilogic.com/achieving-the-technological-singularity/ How Close are We to Technological Singularity and When?]''
* The AI Revolution: Our Immortality or Extinction – [https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html Part 1] and [https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html Part 2] ([[Tim Urban]], ''Wait But Why,'' January 22/27, 2015)

{{Existential risk from artificial intelligence}}
{{emerging technologies|topics=yes}}
{{Doomsday}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Technological Singularity}}
[[Category:Singularitarianism| ]]
[[Category:Existential risk from artificial intelligence]]
[[Category:Philosophy of artificial intelligence]]
[[Category:Science fiction themes]]