Technological singularity
The technological singularity—or simply the singularity[1]—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization.[2][3] According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, I. J. Good's intelligence explosion model of 1965, an upgradable intelligent agent could eventually enter a positive feedback loop of self-improvement cycles, each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase ("explosion") in intelligence which would ultimately result in a powerful superintelligence, qualitatively far surpassing all human intelligence.[4]
"The Singularity" redirects here. For other uses, see Singularity (disambiguation).
The Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann (1903-1957) became the first known person to use the concept of a "singularity" in the technological context.[5] Stanislaw Ulam reported in 1958 an earlier discussion with von Neumann "centered on the 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".[6] Subsequent authors have echoed this viewpoint.[3][7]
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",[8]) and later in his 1993 essay The Coming Technological Singularity,[4][7] (in which he wrote that it would signal the end of the human era, as the new superintelligence would continue to upgrade itself and would advance technologically at an incomprehensible rate). He wrote that he would be surprised if it occurred before 2005 or after 2030.[4] Another significant contributor to wider circulation of the notion was Ray Kurzweil's 2005 book The Singularity Is Near, predicting singularity by 2045.[7]
Some scientists, including Stephen Hawking, have expressed concern that artificial superintelligence (ASI) could result in human extinction.[9][10] The consequences of a technological singularity and its potential benefit or harm to the human race have been intensely debated.
Some prominent technologists and academics - including Paul Allen,[11] Jeff Hawkins,[12] John Holland, Jaron Lanier, Steven Pinker,[12] Theodore Modis,[13] and Gordon Moore[12] - dispute the plausibility of a technological singularity and an associated artificial-intelligence explosion. One claim made was that the artificial-intelligence growth is likely to run into decreasing returns instead of accelerating ones, as was observed in previously developed human technologies.
Variations[edit]
Non-AI singularity[edit]
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),[28][29][30] although Vinge and other writers specifically state that without superintelligence, such changes would not qualify as a true singularity.[4]
Predictions[edit]
In 1965, I. J. Good wrote that it is more probable than not that an ultra-intelligent machine would be built in the twentieth century.[18] In 1993, Vinge predicted greater-than-human intelligence between 2005 and 2030.[4] In 1996, Yudkowsky predicted a singularity in 2021.[20] In 2005, Kurzweil predicted human-level AI around 2029,[31] and the singularity in 2045.[32] In a 2017 interview, Kurzweil reaffirmed his estimates.[33] In 1988, Moravec predicted that if the rate of improvement continues, the computing capabilities for human-level AI would be available in supercomputers before 2010.[34] In 1998, Moravec predicted human-level AI by 2040, and intelligence far beyond human by 2050.[35]
Four polls of AI researchers, conducted in 2012 and 2013 by Nick Bostrom and Vincent C. Müller, suggested a confidence of 50% that human-level AI would be developed by 2040–2050.[36][37]
Plausibility[edit]
Prominent technologists and academics dispute the plausibility of a technological singularity, including Paul Allen,[11] Jeff Hawkins,[12] John Holland, Jaron Lanier, Steven Pinker,[12] Theodore Modis,[13] and Gordon Moore,[12] whose law is often cited in support of the concept.[38]
Most proposed methods for creating superhuman or transhuman minds fall into one of 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 interfaces and mind uploading. These multiple possible paths to an intelligence explosion, all of which will presumably be pursued, makes a singularity more likely.[23]
Robin Hanson 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.[39] Despite all of the speculated ways for amplifying human intelligence, non-human artificial intelligence (specifically seed AI) is the most popular option among the hypotheses that would advance the singularity.
The possibility of an intelligence explosion depends on three factors.[40] The first accelerating factor is the new intelligence enhancements made possible by each previous improvement. Contrariwise, 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 towards singularity to continue. Finally, the laws of physics may eventually prevent further improvement.
There are two logically independent, but mutually reinforcing, causes of intelligence improvements: increases in the speed of computation, and improvements to the algorithms used.[7] The former is predicted by Moore's Law and the forecasted improvements in hardware,[41] and is comparatively similar to previous technological advances. But Schulman and Sandberg[42] 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 NeurIPS and 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".[43]
Algorithm improvements[edit]
Some intelligence technologies, like "seed AI",[16][17] may also have the potential to not just make themselves 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. 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. Eliezer Yudkowsky compares it to the changes that human intelligence brought: humans changed the world thousands of times more rapidly than evolution had done, and in totally different ways. Similarly, the evolution of life was a massive departure and acceleration from the previous geological rates of change, and improved intelligence could cause change to be as different again.[54]
There are substantial dangers 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.[55][56]
Secondly, AIs could compete for the same scarce resources humankind uses to survive.[57][58] While not actively malicious, AIs would promote the goals of their programming, not necessarily broader human goals, and thus might crowd out humans.[59][60][61]
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.[62] An abundance of accumulated hardware that can be unleashed once the software figures out how to use it has been called "computing overhang".[63]
Criticism[edit]
Some critics, like philosopher Hubert Dreyfus[64] and philosopher John Searle,[65] assert that computers or machines cannot achieve human intelligence. Others, like physicist Stephen Hawking,[66] object that whether machines can achieve a true intelligence or merely something similar to intelligence is irrelevant if the net result is the same.
Psychologist Steven Pinker stated 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."[12]
Martin Ford[67] postulates a "technology paradox" in that before the singularity could occur most routine jobs in the economy would be automated, since this would require a level of technology inferior to that of the singularity. This would cause massive unemployment and plummeting consumer demand, which in turn would destroy the incentive to invest in the technologies that would be required to bring about the Singularity. Job displacement is increasingly no longer limited to those types of work traditionally considered to be "routine".[68]
Theodore Modis[69] and Jonathan Huebner[70] 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 rates is slowing, even while Moore's prediction of exponentially increasing circuit density continues to hold. This is due to excessive heat build-up from the chip, which cannot be dissipated quickly enough to prevent the chip 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.[71]
Theodore Modis holds the singularity cannot happen.[72][13][73] 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.[74] In a 2021 article, Modis pointed out 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 twenty years while five of them would have been expected according to the exponential trend advocated by the proponents of the technological singularity.[75]
AI researcher Jürgen Schmidhuber stated 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 could create an illusion of accelerating change where none exists.[76]
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen argued the opposite of accelerating returns, the complexity brake;[11] the more progress science makes towards 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 his The Collapse of Complex Societies,[77] a law of diminishing returns. The number of patents per thousand peaked in the period from 1850 to 1900, and has been declining since.[70] The growth of complexity eventually becomes self-limiting, and leads to a widespread "general systems collapse".
Hofstadter (2006) raises concern that Ray Kurzweil is not sufficiently scientifically rigorous, that an exponential tendency of technology is not a scientific law like one of physics, and that exponential curves have no "knees".[78] Nonetheless, he did not rule out the singularity in principle in the distant future[12] and in the light of ChatGPT and other recent advancements has revised his opinion significantly towards dramatic technological change in the near future.[79]
Jaron Lanier denies that the singularity is inevitable: "I do not think the technology is creating itself. It's not an autonomous process."[80] Furthermore: "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."[80]
Economist Robert J. Gordon points out that measured economic growth slowed around 1970 and slowed even further since the financial crisis of 2007–2008, and argues that the economic data show no trace of a coming Singularity as imagined by mathematician I. J. Good.[81]
Philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett said in 2017: "The whole singularity stuff, that's preposterous. It distracts us from much more pressing problems", adding "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."[82]
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 chart of this nature is inherently biased toward a straight-line result. Others identify selection bias in the points that Kurzweil chooses to use. For example, biologist PZ Myers points out that many of the early evolutionary "events" were picked arbitrarily.[83] Kurzweil has rebutted this by charting evolutionary events from 15 neutral sources, and showing that they fit a straight line on a log-log chart. Kelly (2006) argues that the way the Kurzweil chart is constructed with x-axis having time before 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.[84]
Some critics suggest religious motivations or implications of singularity, especially Kurzweil's version of it. The buildup towards the Singularity is compared with Judeo-Christian end-of-time scenarios. Beam calls it "a Buck Rogers vision of the hypothetical Christian Rapture".[85] John Gray says "the Singularity echoes apocalyptic myths in which history is about to be interrupted by a world-transforming event".[86]
David Streitfeld in The New York Times 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."[87]
Relation to immortality and aging[edit]
Drexler (1986), one of the founders of nanotechnology, postulates cell repair devices, including ones operating within cells and using as yet hypothetical biological machines.[117] According to Richard Feynman, it was his former graduate student and collaborator Albert Hibbs who 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 reduced in size to the point that it would, in theory, be possible to (as Feynman put it) "swallow the doctor". The idea was incorporated into Feynman's 1959 essay There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom.[118]
Moravec (1988)[34] predicts the possibility of "uploading" 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.
Kurzweil (2005) suggests that medical advances would allow people to protect their bodies from the effects of aging, making the life expectancy limitless. Kurzweil argues that the technological advances in medicine would allow us to continuously repair and replace defective components in our bodies, prolonging life to an undetermined age.[119] Kurzweil further buttresses his argument by discussing current bio-engineering advances. Kurzweil suggests somatic gene therapy; after synthetic viruses with specific genetic information, the next step would be to apply this technology to gene therapy, replacing human DNA with synthesized genes.[120]
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."[121]