Showing posts with label Peter Diamandis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peter Diamandis. Show all posts

AI - Technological Singularity

 




The emergence of technologies that could fundamentally change humans' role in society, challenge human epistemic agency and ontological status, and trigger unprecedented and unforeseen developments in all aspects of life, whether biological, social, cultural, or technological, is referred to as the Technological Singularity.

The Singularity of Technology is most often connected with artificial intelligence, particularly artificial general intelligence (AGI).

As a result, it's frequently depicted as an intelligence explosion that's pushing advancements in fields like biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technologies, as well as inventing new innovations.

The Technological Singularity is sometimes referred to as the Singularity, however it should not be confused with a mathematical singularity, since it has only a passing similarity.

This singularity, on the other hand, is a loosely defined term that may be interpreted in a variety of ways, each highlighting distinct elements of the technological advances.

The thoughts and writings of John von Neumann (1903–1957), Irving John Good (1916–2009), and Vernor Vinge (1944–) are commonly connected with the Technological Singularity notion, which dates back to the second half of the twentieth century.

Several universities, as well as governmental and corporate research institutes, have financed current Technological Singularity research in order to better understand the future of technology and society.

Despite the fact that it is the topic of profound philosophical and technical arguments, the Technological Singularity remains a hypothesis, a guess, and a pretty open hypothetical idea.

While numerous scholars think that the Technological Singularity is unavoidable, the date of its occurrence is continuously pushed back.

Nonetheless, many studies agree that the issue is not whether or whether the Technological Singularity will occur, but rather when and how it will occur.

Ray Kurzweil proposed a more exact timeline for the emergence of the Technological Singularity in the mid-twentieth century.

Others have sought to give a date to this event, but there are no well-founded grounds in support of any such proposal.

Furthermore, without applicable measures or signs, mankind would have no way of knowing when the Technological Singularity has occurred.

The history of artificial intelligence's unmet promises exemplifies the dangers of attempting to predict the future of technology.

The themes of superintelligence, acceleration, and discontinuity are often used to describe the Technological Singularity.

The term "superintelligence" refers to a quantitative jump in artificial systems' cognitive abilities, putting them much beyond the capabilities of typical human cognition (as measured by standard IQ tests).

Superintelligence, on the other hand, may not be restricted to AI and computer technology.

Through genetic engineering, biological computing systems, or hybrid artificial–natural systems, it may manifest in human agents.

Superintelligence, according to some academics, has boundless intellectual capabilities.

The curvature of the time curve for the advent of certain key events is referred to as acceleration.

Stone tools, the pottery wheel, the steam engine, electricity, atomic power, computers, and the internet are all examples of technological advancement portrayed as a curve across time emphasizing the discovery of major innovations.

Moore's law, which is more precisely an observation that has been viewed as a law, represents the increase in computer capacity.

"Every two years, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles," it says.

People think that the emergence of key technical advances and new technological and scientific paradigms will follow a super-exponential curve in the event of the Technological Singularity.

One prediction regarding the Technological Singularity, for example, is that superintelligent systems would be able to self-improve (and self-replicate) in previously unimaginable ways at an unprecedented pace, pushing the technological development curve far beyond what has ever been witnessed.

The Technological Singularity discontinuity is referred to as an event horizon, and it is similar to a physical idea linked with black holes.

The analogy to this physical phenomena, on the other hand, should be used with care rather than being used to credit the physical world's regularity and predictability to technological singularity.

The limit of our knowledge about physical occurrences beyond a specific point in time is defined by an event horizon (also known as a prediction horizon).

It signifies that there is no way of knowing what will happen beyond the event horizon.

The discontinuity or event horizon in the context of technological singularity suggests that the technologies that precipitate technological singularity would cause disruptive changes in all areas of human life, developments about which experts cannot even conjecture.

The end of humanity and the end of human civilization are often related with technological singularity.

According to some research, social order will collapse, people will cease to be major actors, and epistemic agency and primacy would be lost.

Humans, it seems, will not be required by superintelligent systems.

These systems will be able to self-replicate, develop, and build their own living places, and humans will be seen as either barriers or unimportant, outdated things, similar to how humans now consider lesser species.

One such situation is represented by Nick Bostrom's Paperclip Maximizer.

AI is included as a possible danger to humanity's existence in the Global Catastrophic Risks Survey, with a reasonably high likelihood of human extinction, placing it on par with global pandemics, nuclear war, and global nanotech catastrophes.

However, the AI-related apocalyptic scenario is not a foregone conclusion of the Technological Singularity.

In other more utopian scenarios, technology singularity would usher in a new period of endless bliss by opening up new opportunities for humanity's infinite expansion.

Another element of technological singularity that requires serious consideration is how the arrival of superintelligence may imply the emergence of superethical capabilities in an all-knowing ethical agent.

Nobody knows, however, what superethical abilities might entail.

The fundamental problem, however, is that superintelligent entities' higher intellectual abilities do not ensure a high degree of ethical probity, or even any level of ethical probity.

As a result, having a superintelligent machine with almost infinite (but not quite) capacities but no ethics seems to be dangerous to say the least.

A sizable number of scholars are skeptical about the development of the Technological Singularity, notably of superintelligence.

They rule out the possibility of developing artificial systems with superhuman cognitive abilities, either on philosophical or scientific grounds.

Some contend that while artificial intelligence is often at the heart of technological singularity claims, achieving human-level intelligence in artificial systems is impossible, and hence superintelligence, and thus the Technological Singularity, is a dream.

Such barriers, however, do not exclude the development of superhuman brains via the genetic modification of regular people, paving the door for transhumans, human-machine hybrids, and superhuman agents.

More scholars question the validity of the notion of the Technological Singularity, pointing out that such forecasts about future civilizations are based on speculation and guesswork.

Others argue that the promises of unrestrained technological advancement and limitless intellectual capacities made by the Technological Singularity legend are unfounded, since physical and informational processing resources are plainly limited in the cosmos, particularly on Earth.

Any promises of self-replicating, self-improving artificial agents capable of super-exponential technological advancement are false, since such systems will lack the creativity, will, and incentive to drive their own evolution.

Meanwhile, social opponents point out that superintelligence's boundless technological advancement would not alleviate issues like overpopulation, environmental degradation, poverty, and unparalleled inequality.

Indeed, the widespread unemployment projected as a consequence of AI-assisted mass automation of labor, barring significant segments of the population from contributing to society, would result in unparalleled social upheaval, delaying the development of new technologies.

As a result, rather than speeding up, political or societal pressures will stifle technological advancement.

While technological singularity cannot be ruled out on logical grounds, the technical hurdles that it faces, even if limited to those that can presently be determined, are considerable.

Nobody expects the technological singularity to happen with today's computers and other technology, but proponents of the concept consider these obstacles as "technical challenges to be overcome" rather than possible show-stoppers.

However, there is a large list of technological issues to be overcome, and Murray Shanahan's The Technological Singularity (2015) gives a fair overview of some of them.

There are also some significant nontechnical issues, such as the problem of superintelligent system training, the ontology of artificial or machine consciousness and self-aware artificial systems, the embodiment of artificial minds or vicarious embodiment processes, and the rights granted to superintelligent systems, as well as their role in society and any limitations placed on their actions, if this is even possible.

These issues are currently confined to the realms of technological and philosophical discussion.


~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Find Jai on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram


You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.



See also: 


Bostrom, Nick; de Garis, Hugo; Diamandis, Peter; Digital Immortality; Goertzel, Ben; Kurzweil, Ray; Moravec, Hans; Post-Scarcity, AI and; Superintelligence.


References And Further Reading


Bostrom, Nick. 2014. Superintelligence: Path, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Chalmers, David. 2010. “The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 17: 7–65.

Eden, Amnon H. 2016. The Singularity Controversy. Sapience Project. Technical Report STR 2016-1. January 2016.

Eden, Amnon H., Eric Steinhart, David Pearce, and James H. Moor. 2012. “Singularity Hypotheses: An Overview.” In Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment, edited by Amnon H. Eden, James H. Moor, Johnny H. Søraker, and Eric Steinhart, 1–12. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer.

Good, I. J. 1966. “Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine.” Advances in Computers 6: 31–88.

Kurzweil, Ray. 2005. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Viking.

Sandberg, Anders, and Nick Bostrom. 2008. Global Catastrophic Risks Survey. Technical Report #2008/1. Oxford University, Future of Humanity Institute.

Shanahan, Murray. 2015. The Technological Singularity. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Ulam, Stanislaw. 1958. “Tribute to John von Neumann.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 64, no. 3, pt. 2 (May): 1–49.

Vinge, Vernor. 1993. “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era.” In Vision 21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of Cyberspace, 11–22. Cleveland, OH: NASA Lewis Research Center.


Artificial Intelligence - Who Is Peter Diamandis?



Peter Diamandis (1961–) is a Harvard medical doctor who also has an MIT degree in aeronautical engineering.

He's also a serial entrepreneur, having created or cofounded twelve businesses, the most of which are still operational today, including International Space University and Singularity University.

The XPRIZE Foundation is his idea, and it hosts challenges in futuristic fields including space technology, low-cost mobile medical diagnostics, and oil spill cleanup.

Singularity University, which trains CEOs and graduate students on exponentially developing technology, is chaired by him.

The major difficulties that mankind faces are the focus of Diamandis' work.

His interests were first solely centered on space travel.

He believed that mankind should be a multiplanetary species when he was a teenager.

When he recognized that the US government was unwilling to fund NASA's lofty ambitions for colonization of other planets, he selected the private sector as the new space engine.

He launched many not-for-profit start-ups while still a student at Harvard and MIT, including International Space University (1987), which is now situated in France.

International Microspace, a for-profit microsatellite launcher, was created by him in 1989.

In 1992, Diamandis founded Zero Gravity, a firm dedicated to provide consumers with the sensation of weightlessness via parabolic flights.

Stephen Hawking is the most renowned of the 12,000 clients who have experienced zero gravity thus far.

In 2004, he established the XPRIZE Foundation, which is essentially a large incentive reward (five to ten million dol lars).

Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil cofounded Singularity University in 2008 to teach individuals how to conceive in terms of exponential technologies and to assist entrepreneurs use exponential technologies to solve humanity's most urgent challenges.

Planetary Resources, an asteroid mining firm that promises to create low-cost spacecraft, was established by him in 2012.

Diamandis is often referred to as a futurist.

If that's the case, he's a unique kind of futurist, since he doesn't extrapolate patterns or make intricate prophecies.

Diamandis' primary task is matchmaking: he finds major issues on the one hand and then connects them to viable remedies on the other.

He has developed incentive prizes and a network of influential billionaires to fund such prizes in order to uncover viable answers.

Larry Page, James Cameron, and the late Ross Perot are among the billionaires who have backed Diamandis' endeavors.

Diamandis began by focusing on the difficulty of getting humans into space, but over the last three decades, he has broadened his focus to include all of humanity's big concerns in exploration, including space and seas, life sciences, education, global development, energy, and the environment.

The next frontier for Diamandis is increased longevity, or living longer.

He believes that the causes of early mortality may be eliminated, and that the general people can live longer and healthier lives.

He also thinks that a person's mental peak may be extended by 20 years.

In 2014, Diamandis founded Human Longevity, a biotechnology business based in San Diego, alongside genomics specialist Craig Venter and stem cell pioneer Robert Hariri to tackle the challenge of longevity.

Four years later, he cofounded Celularity, a longevity-focused firm that offers stem cell-based antiaging therapies, alongside Hariri.



~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.



See also: 


Kurzweil, Ray; Technological Singularity.


Further Reading:


Diamandis, Peter. 2012. Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. New York: Free Press.

Guthrie, Julian. 2016. How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight. New York: Penguin Press.




What Is Artificial General Intelligence?

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is defined as the software representation of generalized human cognitive capacities that enables the ...