This month, the @Ooorah crew take on the Singularity! Come on in and give the reviews, articles and short stories a read, have a crack at our monthly caption contest and catch up with the adventures of Smith & Jones!
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The Singularity, much like the occasional Wattpad-created sub-genre of science fiction, is a relatively recently devised sub-genre from the minds of a few SF writers.
In essence, it revolves around the theory that some day (potentially) soon, Artificial Intelligence will reach the point where it no longer requires any human input, where AI can build bigger and better versions of itself.
'The Singularity is an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today—the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity.'
'The technological singularity is the hypothetical advent of artificial general intelligence (also known as "strong AI"). Such a computer, computer network, or robot would theoretically be capable of recursive self-improvement (redesigning itself), or of designing and building computers or robots better than itself. Repetitions of this cycle would likely result in a runaway effect — an intelligence explosion — where smart machines design successive generations of increasingly powerful machines, creating intelligence far exceeding human intellectual capacity and control. Because the capabilities of such a superintelligence may be impossible for a human to comprehend, the technological singularity is an occurrence beyond which events may become unpredictable, unfavorable, or even unfathomable.'
In essence, the Technological Singularity is the theory that some day (probably) soon, Artifical Intelligence will be so powerful and, well, intelligent, that its cognitive functions will become immeasurable. Think Skynet and the Matrix, and you're along the right lines.
It could, according to those folk who know what they're on about, happen at some point within the next 5-100 years...
But we here at Tevun-Krus couldn't help but ask the following question. Is there more to the Singularity than that?
