The Singularity is Near - An Amazing Future

Startling in scope and bravado."

- Janet Maslin, New York Times, on Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity is Near (on which the movie is based)

So what is the Singularity?

Within a quarter century, nonbiological intelligence will match the range and subtlety of human intelligence.  It will then soar past it because of the continuing acceleration of information-based technologies, as well as the ability of machines to instantly share their knowledge. Intelligent nanorobots will be deeply integrated in our bodies, our brains, and our environment, overcoming pollution and poverty, providing vastly extended longevity, full-immersion virtual reality incorporating all of the senses (like “The Matrix”), "experience beaming” (like “Being John Malkovich”),  and vastly enhanced human intelligence.  The result will be an intimate merger between the technology-creating species and the technological evolutionary process it spawned.

And that’s the Singularity?

No, that’s just the precursor.  Nonbiological intelligence will have access to its own design and will be able to improve itself in an increasingly rapid redesign cycle.  We’ll get to a point where technical progress will be so fast that unenhanced human intelligence will be unable to follow it.  That will mark the Singularity.

When will that occur?

I set the date for the Singularity—representing a profound and disruptive transformation in human capability—as 2045.  The nonbiological intelligence created in that year will be one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today. 

Why is this called the Singularity?

The term “Singularity” in my book is comparable to the use of this term by the physics community. Just as we find it hard to see beyond the event horizon of a black hole, we also find it difficult to see beyond the event horizon of the historical Singularity. How can we, with our limited biological brains, imagine what our future civilization, with its intelligence multiplied trillions-fold, be capable of thinking and doing?  Nevertheless, just as we can draw conclusions about the nature of black holes through our conceptual thinking, despite never having actually been inside one, our thinking today is powerful enough to have meaningful insights into the implications of the Singularity. That’s what I’ve tried to do in this book.

Download the complete QandA on What is the Singularity.