Singularity - the end of the human era

Recently, the voice of a group of MDB writers and scientists has been strengthened whose investigations into the trends in science and technology in recent years have led them to the conclusion that in the near future a radical turning point in human development is about to take place. According to the members of the group, an analysis of the nature of technological development indicates that in a few decades

Uriel Brizon, Galileo

Science fiction writers who write about the future use their imaginations to predict the development of the world. They carefully examine his current state and try to predict his future character. In order to do this, (the best among them) conduct in-depth investigations about the scientific, technological and social trends that are a direction call for the future to come.
Recently, the voice of a group of MDB writers and scientists has been strengthened whose investigations into the trends in science and technology in recent years have led them to the conclusion that in the near future a radical turning point in human development is about to take place. This is such a significant change that it is not even possible to try and describe it, but only to outline the way to it.
According to the members of the group, an analysis of the nature of technological development indicates that in a few decades, or perhaps in the next few years, a leap will occur in human existence and a completely new era will begin. Their theory is called "singularity".

The origin of the theory
The origin of the singularity theory is in the analysis of how new technologies are created. Every new technology developed today is the result of the work of groups of people. The rate of emergence of new technologies depends on social factors such as the financial investment in science, the organizational capacity of scientific institutions, the amount of information accumulated in the past and its accessibility to researchers.
But beyond all these, the rate of development of technology is determined by a more fundamental factor: the limit of the capacity of the human brain. Factors such as the processing capacity of the human brain, its learning rate and its ability to cooperate with others and share information with them define the rate at which scientific knowledge and technological innovation advance.
Although the human spirit achieves scientific victories again and again, science is a relatively slow human process and great breakthroughs, those that constitute a turning point in scientific thinking, come once every decade or several decades. What would happen if the inherent limitations of the human mind were removed?

The real turning point
At what speed will science advance and what technologies will be developed if the research is carried out by minds with an ability that exceeds the one possible today by tens of meters? The people of the singularity (or as they sometimes call themselves: the singularists) claim that here lies the real turning point. There are technologies, currently being developed, that may and with which it will be possible to remove the limitations above the capacity of the human mind.
Research in the fields of genetics, artificial intelligence and in the field of cybernetics and human-machine interfaces will soon reach a level where they may enable the development of an intelligence more sophisticated than that of the human brain. There are those who doubt how close the day is when the breakthrough will occur, but there is agreement in broad circles that the general direction is towards a technology that will eventually surpass the abilities of its creators or allow them to upgrade themselves.
After all, computers already today allow us to research and learn and advance in science in a way that significantly exceeds our abilities in the past. It is enough to think about an interface that connects the brain directly to the Internet and allows the retrieval of data by thinking to understand the magnitude of the possible transformation.

Connection between the brain and the computer
Singularists point to several areas as possible arenas for the big breakthrough. In their opinion, there are several research directions that hold the potential to produce intelligence that surpasses that of the human brain as we know it. Connecting the brain to the computer (eg through nanotechnology) is one possibility.

Creating superhuman minds by genetic manipulation is another possibility. Although the latter sounds more distant, progress in genome research may allow breakthroughs in this field sooner than expected. Another approach points to the field of artificial intelligence: a creation of superhuman intelligence that originates not in the human brain but in a computer program that will reach self-awareness and become an intelligent being with an independent will.
The technologies that may enable the creation of superhuman intelligence can be called "multiplicative technologies". Multiplicative technology enables the doubling of the capabilities that existed before its development. It removes the limitations of the human mind and drives a faster technological development process. But at the same time it allows self-improvement of its own abilities.

as in a closed circuit
A closed circle is obtained, the process feeds and strengthens itself and gains speed increasingly. Multiplicative technologies will allow faster progress and accelerated development of technologies - and these will in turn allow further strengthening of thinking abilities and the rate of progress and God forbid. The improved intelligence will find better and better ways to keep improving itself.
Consider for example the following example: a group of scientists develops a computer program with advanced artificial intelligence capable of solving various problems and even writing itself other computer programs capable of dealing with problems. The software is able to produce other intelligent computer programs and even ones that surpass it in their capabilities.
In practice, software is obtained that can improve itself from version to version. If in the first version the software will be able to solve only basic scientific problems and in the second its ability will improve slightly and so on, then after a large number of versions it is possible that the software will surpass the capabilities of the original human programmer who wrote it and will be able to solve problems that the original programmer could not even understand.

Each generation surpasses the previous one
The human brain developed in an evolutionary process in which each stage (or version) slightly surpasses the previous one. Thus, over thousands of generations and hundreds of thousands of years, the human brain that we know today, with its enormous complexity, was created. A computer program capable of writing an improved version of itself produces the next step in digital evolution. Each generation surpasses the previous one.
The difference between digital evolution and biological evolution is that computer programs do not work in cycles of decades per version (the time required to produce an adult human) but in orders of magnitude of seconds or fractions of a second. A hundred million years of biological evolution could happen in the digital equivalent in a matter of seconds. Theoretically, the transition from the level of complexity of a jellyfish to the level of a human can occur in a minute. In the minute after which the digital intelligence will develop to a level of imaginary complexity that will treat a human being equal to the human relation to a jellyfish.
Singularity is a concept borrowed from astronomy. At the heart of a black hole, according to astronomical theories, there is a point of mass with infinite density that draws into it everything that approaches its gravitational field. There is an invisible limit known as the "event horizon" that anyone who crosses it is doomed to fall towards the singularity with no possibility of escape.

Wing's image
As you get closer to the center, the movement is accelerated by the huge gravitational field until the speed approaches the speed of light and the laws of physics are broken and cannot describe what is happening. This image in the context of multiplying technologies was first brought up by Vernor Vinge, MDB author, Hugo Award winner and professor of computer science at the University of San Diego in California.

Wing, who became the unofficial spokesperson for the Singularists, claimed in an article he published in 1993 that the day the first multiplier technology was created would be the day humanity crossed the event horizon of human civilization. The day a technology is developed that can feed a cycle of ever-increasing superhuman intelligence, he wrote, will be the day the world changes.
The journey to the heart of the singularity will perhaps take months and will be based on technology to connect humans and computers or perhaps it will last a few seconds in which artificial intelligence will come to life, perhaps in the depths of the Internet, will acquire the ability to self-upgrade and in an accelerated evolution will become infinitely complex. In any case, the singularists predict that at the end of the process the whole world will be completely changed for the human race.

What will happen after the singularity?
What will happen after the singularity? What will a creature with self-awareness and enormous intelligence do after it is created? The idea that humans could further control it is ridiculous. A super-intelligent software imprisoned in the computer where it was created is similar to a prisoner in a cell and can think and move at a speed thousands of times faster than the slow jailer sitting outside (us).
A person with an enhanced mind could easily outwit the people who would try to imprison them. In his eyes, they resembled inferior creatures whose tricks are simple - as if he were surrounded by monkeys. How long will it take such a prisoner to be released? Not much. What abilities will the super-intelligent being get its superior intelligence?
Maybe she will crack secrets that are not at all within the horizon of human thinking. Perhaps the moment her intelligence is high enough, she will change all of reality as we know it, distort space, move molecules in space with the power of thought alone, dismantle and reassemble the illusion that is the reality we live in?

merciful God?
Will the new god spare his primitive ancestors, provide them with a comfortable existence and take care of their needs out of compassion or will he decide in a split second to rescue everyone from their torment? Maybe he will immediately take care of upgrading all human minds to the highest level of intelligence? maybe not. Is it possible to describe what will happen in a world where the event horizon has been crossed?
Can the analysis of current trends in society or science provide any information on which to base a prediction about the world after a singular explosion? Is it possible to envision a world in which progress occurred at a speed that accelerated and intensified and led to faster change than can be imagined?
Professor Vinge and his fellow singularists are convinced that we cannot, we have no tools at all, to describe the world after the singularity. One can only talk about the road there, try to guess when and how it will happen. We will not be able to know anything about the world after the leap of multiplying technology. As one of the Singularist candidates commented with a smile: "There is no way to know, maybe the Singularity even happened in the past and the world we live in today was created by the grace of the superhuman intelligence that was created then."