The original meaning of "technological singularity", as coined by Vernor Vinge in his 1993 essay (the first in this section) is the Event Horizon view. This view links to Alan Turing's seminal writing about intelligent machinery outstripping human intelligence, and more directly to I.J. Good's term "intelligence explosion,"which suggest not only a growth of machine intelligence but its acceleration. (1)
The Singularity is a moment of significant discontinuity with what has come before; it is brought about by the acceleration of technological progress, as defined by increases in artificial intelligence and the speed of computer networks. (2)
In terms of technology and society, the Singularity refers to a point in the future where the impact of technologically driven changes will accelerate beyond which we cannot predict the social, legal, economic, or human consequences. (3)
The notion of a coming technological singularity is a key concept in contemporary science fiction, futurism and popular science. It is the central theme in block-buster movies such as The Matrix (1999) and The Terminator (1984) and a number of science fiction novels, such as William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) and William Thomas Quick's trilogy Dreams of Flesh and Sand (1988), Dreams of Gods and Men (1989), and Singularities (1990). (4)
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Sources
- Book: The transhumanist reader : classical and contemporary essays on the science, technology, and philosophy of the human future / by Max More, Natasha Vita-More
- Book: Education in the Creative Economy: Knowledge and Learning in the Age of Innovation / by Daniel Araya, Michael A. Peters
- Book: Encyclopedia of Global Justice / by Deen K. Chatterjee
- Book: Science Fiction, Ethics and the Human Condition / by Christian Baron, Peter Nicolai Halvorsen, Christine Cornea
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