Maybe Google’s posting of their enigmatic UFO logo this weekend is a not so subtle sign that they know something the rest of us don’t. An ET search query, perhaps? Meanwhile down at the Googleplex, it is the best of times. Anyone who
complains about science not delivering it’s promises simply doesn’t
comprehend how incredible this information age truly is: you can go to
the mall RIGHT NOW and buy devices which would have reshaped the world
ten years ago, are reshaping it today, and technology isn’t slowing
down - it’s accelerating exponentially. There are incredible
innovations just around the corner and that’s the thinking behind the
creation of Singularity University.
An advanced academic institution sponsored by leading lights including
NASA and Google (so it couldn’t sound smarter if Brainiac 5 traveled
back in time to attend the opening ceremony). The “Singularity” is the
idea of a future point where super-human intellects are created,
turbo-boosting the already exponential rate of technological
improvement and triggering a fundamental change in human society -
after the Agricultural Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution, we
would have the Intelligence Revolution
Real
AI effects are closer than you might think, with entirely automated
systems producing new scientific results and even holding patents on
minor inventions. The key factor in singularity scenarios is the
positive-feedback loop of self-improvement: once something is even
slightly smarter than humanity, it can start to improve itself or
design new intelligences faster than we can leading to an intelligence
explosion designed by something that isn’t us.
The Singularity
University proposes to train people to deal with the accelerating
evolution of technology, both in terms of understanding the directions
and harnessing the potential of new interactions between branches of
science like artificial intelligence, genetic engineering and
nanotechnology.
Inventor and author Raymond Kurzweil is one of
the forces behind SU, which we presume will have the most awesomely
equipped pranks of all time (”Check it out, we replaced the Professor’s
chair with an adaptive holographic robot!”), and it isn’t the only
institutions he’s helped found. There’s also the Singularity Institute
for Artificial Intelligence whose sole function is based on the
exponential AI increases predicted. The idea is that the first AI
created will have an enormous advantage over all that follow, upgrading
itself at a rate they can never catch up on simply because it started
first, so the Institute wants to work to create a benevolent AI to
guard us against all that might follow.
Make no mistake: the AI race is on, and Raymond wants us to win.
Posted by Luke McKinney.
Raymond Kurzweil discusses technological progress and announces the Singularity University
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