1. Singularity
What is it? Will a
positive Singularity
lead to a utopia?

2. What Is It? How can it occur?
 The notion of some radical technological shift beyond
which the world is unimaginable
 Visions of the future
 Just the continuation of more and better gadgets and
faster computers
 Accelerating Returns
 The rate of change, of innovation, is accelerating, even the rate
of its acceleration is accelerating.
 Event Horizon
 Intelligence Explosion
 The advent of greater than human intelligence
 Apacalyptism
 Geek religion?

3. Models of Singularity
 Advent of greater than human intelligence
 AGI
 Brain emulation
 Augmenting human intelligence
 Accelerating change
 Which also makes brain emulation and workable
AI nearly inevitable
 But some say just the change itself will grow
beyond our ability to understand or predict

4. Accelerating Returns
 Examination of multiple events and capabilities
shows exponential increase
 All are driven by (and contribute to) intelligence
 Rate of inventions, innovation
 Adoption rates of innovation
 Increase in computational ability
 Increase in communication ability and use
 Time between paradigm shifts
 Computational power per unit cost

5. Accelerating Returns
 Core Claim
 Technological change feeds on itself and
therefore accelerates. Our past or current rate of
change is not a good predictor of the future rate
of change.
 Strong Claim
 Technological change follows smooth curves,
typically exponential. Therefore we can predict
with some precision when various changes will
arrive and cross key thresholds, like the creation of
AI.
 Advocates
 Ray Kurzweil, Alvin Toffler, John Smart

6. Paradigm Shift Time

7. DNA Sequencing Costs

8. Mass Use of Inventions

9. Moore’s Law

10. Data Mass Storage

11. ISP Cost-Performance

12. Random Access Memory

13. Exponential Growth -
Computing

14. Computational Increase
Predictions
 Human brain capability (2 * 10^16 cps) for $1000
around 2023
 Human brain capability (2 * 10^16 cps) for one
cent around 2037
 Human race capability (2 * 10^28 cps) for $1000
around 2049
 Human race capability (2 * 10^28 cps) for one
cent around 2059

15. Computational Acceleration
 Blue Gene will have 5% of the computational
power needed to match a human brain
 In the next five years or so supercomputers will
match the computing capacity of the human
brain
 By about 2030 such a machine will cost around
$1.
 What happens when you put 1000 of them to
work 24x7 on say the AGI problem or MNT or
ending aging?

16. Limits of Human Intelligence
20 – 500Hz. Neuron firing rate
 Lately there is evidence than the pattern of firings is the important
information unit
 Very few aspects of a problem may be held in conscious awareness at one
time
 Very slow learning rates
 Faulty memory
 Limited communication ability with other minds
 Squishy deteriorating mind implementation
 Poor scalability
 Poor transfer of knowledge
 Very slow replication

17. Past Intelligence
Augmentation
 Communication. Starting with speech
 Writing – an early augmentation of human intelligence
 Stable cultures respectful of knowledge and encouraging to
innovation
 Dissemination of learning
 Science and Mathematics
 Reality respecting culture
 Computation
 Gathering and doing more with information ever faster
 Device Convergence

18. Future Intelligence Augmentation
 Ubiquitous computing
 Exo-cortex
 Wearable or embedded computing /
communication
 Brain – computer interface
 Upgrading the brain with technology
 Bio-chemical upgrading
 Upload

19. Event Horizon
 Core claim
 Soon we will not be the greatest intelligence on the
planet
 Then the changes in our world will no longer be in our
control or understadable and predictable by us
 Strong claim
 To understand what a superintelligence would do you
would have to be that intelligent. Thus the future after
that is totally unpredictable.
 Advocates
 Vernon Vinge

20. Greater Than Human
Intelligence
"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.”
- I. J. Good 1965

21. Intelligence Explosion
 Core Claim
 Creating minds significantly smarter than humans
closes the loop creating a positive feeback cycle.
 Strong Claim
 The positive feedback cycle goes FOOM, each
improvement triggering the next.
Superintelligence up to the limits of the laws of
physics develops rapidly.
 Advocates:
 I.J. Good, Eliezer Yudkowsky

22. What does Singularity Mean for Us?
 Short Range
 Employment / Work
 Cures for all disease including aging
 Near limitless abundance
 Economics
 Political
 Backlash
 Sociological

23. Impact of Human Equivalent
Machine Intelligence
 Assume
 Human intelligence without biological limitations and
distractions
 Can focus and work 24 x 7
 Ultimately very cheap to own and easy to replicate any unit’s
knowledge
 Results
 Almost all human labor, especially intellectual becomes
economically superfluous
 Progress increases substantially when entire armies can be
deployed on projects
 So..
 economics must change a great deal for all humans to
continue to partake in results
 Our view of ourselves must change
 Maybe we join the AIs and become uploads

24. > Human Intelligence Impact
 Much that goes on is totally opaque to even
augmented humans
 Humans even transhumans are not in charge,
are second class citizens
 Are they respected? Kept around?
 Our history with other species is not encouraging
 Are humans irrelevant to AGIs?
 Is there an objective ethical argument for treating
lesser intelligences well?
 Is going extinct to usher in a greater intelligence
“OK”?

25. What does Singularity Mean for us
 Long term
 Do we survive?
 If we do not are we happy to have produced
wonderful “mind children” as Moravec suggests?
 Are we recognizable as human?
 Does it matter?
 What of those who do not wish to change?
 Unlimited future..
 Unchecked or unwise recursively improving AI goos
the universe

26. What Could Stop Singularity?
 Turns out to be unnoticeable and no big deal
 Harsh Condition Slow, Halt, Reverse Progress
 Unexpected limits and difficulties

27. Harsh Things Happen
 Economic Disaster
 Some believe this will take a decade or two to
clean up
 Energy Disaster
 Easily a decade to largely replace oil
 Existential Risk
 Major War

28. What would Utopia take?
 We become super bright, compassionate and
enlightened
 AGI is Friendly and bring us the best we can
possibly have as quickly as it deems best for us to
have it

29. AGI ends up Friendly
because
 Its own decision based on:
 We are it progenitors
 It finds us curious or amusing
 Its ethics lead it to treat lesser intelligences well
 Some really bright human hackers gave it
unbreakable limts or top level utility function

30. Is the best we can get
utopia?
 What is utopia?
 End of all suffering?
 Does this mean end of wanting what you don’t and
perhaps can’t yet have?
 Does it mean the end of negative feedback or
consequences no matter what you do?
 Do you instantly become enlightened?
 End of material lack
 Beyond lack to people stop wanting?
 Is utopia nothing left to do?
 Can humans be happy as second class or so
totally outclassed as to be beyond
comprehension?