Good explanation of the singularity

The video is about the exponential progression of information technology (exemplified by e.g. Moores Law), and how that in combination with more advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and the reverse-engineering of the human brain in the future could lead to a technological singularity, as theorized by people such as Ray Kurzweil. It discusses the development of technology as an evolutionary process, and shows by examples that evolution is an exponential process.

ABOUT THE LICENSING OF THE MATERIAL I´VE USED

A lot of the pictures I´ve used are in the public domain. And a lot of pictures have a Creative Commons license. You can find links to all the different pictures with CC-license I have used in the video of which this video is a part here: http://licensedmaterialformyvideos.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/the-licensed-mate.... The links will give you information about the copy-right-holders.

Thank you very much to all of the people who have released your work into the public domain, or given it a CC-license!

I believe that my use of book- and film-covers, as well as a screen-shot from IBMs Watson´s participation in Jeopardy, as qualifying very clearly as being fair use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use.

The graphs with exponential y-axis were produced by Ray Kurzweil and his team. His book can be bought here: http://www.amazon.com/Singularity-Near-Humans-Transcend-Biology/dp/0670033847.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• the singularity
• ray kurzweil
• information technology
• artificial intelligence
• ai
• moores law
• exponential growth
• technology

[gamepro94z]

awesome answers =D one more and ill stop bugging you do you plan to upload your brain into a computer? and if so do you think it would be you? lets say you do upload you brain then what happens to you biological body? would it really be you in the computer? i was thinking if i was going to do this i would do it in a process of slowly merging my brain with nanobots until i my brain was completely robotic.. but then would that be me?

[ThorBarstad]

@gamepro94z I´ve enjoyed your comments. I don´t really have plans for myself that far into the future. I´ll have to wait and see :)

[ThorBarstad]

@ThorBarstad Luckily, although the atoms in your brain change, the pattern that is you can keep many of it´s properties and be continuous ;)

[ThorBarstad]

@gamepro94z I would say: Yes, it would be you. You would have the same memories, the same human connections, many of the same thoughts (and many new ones), and I suppose many of the same traits (more or less). You would change of course, but you already have changed drastically when growing up from a kid into an adult. I wouldn´t say that´s a tragedy. I think changing ourselves will let us keep a lot of what´s good about ourselves, and let us become more than we already are.

[ThorBarstad]

@gamepro94z ...The half-life of a microtubule (a protein filament that provides the structure of a neuron) is about ten minutes. The actin filaments in dendrites are replaced about every forty seconds. The proteins that power the synapses are replaced about every hour. NMDA receptors in synapses stick around for a relatively long five days.”

- Ray Kurzweil

So if you define you as being made out of the same atoms: Fear for your life! :P

[ThorBarstad]

@gamepro94z I made a mess out of these answers :P

Here is the start of the quote:

“The specific set of particles that my body and brain comprise are in fact completely different from the atoms and molecules that I comprised only a short while ago. We know that most of our cells are turned over in a matter of weeks, and even our neurons [engelsk for hjerneceller], which persist as distinct cells for a relatively long time, nonetheless change all of their constituent molecules within a month....

[zenthex1234]

a computer can't think for it self. even if you teach a computer to think for it self it still only thinking for it self because it's been told to. humans can think, learn, advance, and question in ways a computer couldn't comprehend. a computer knows because it knows. this is why computers can't, and would never want to take over the world.

[Balehipocanter]

Pessimists be warned; being resigned to death, illness, scarcity, needless suffering, and economic-educational-creative inequality is counter-progressive. It holds humanity back and condemns us in our posterity's eyes. We will inevitably move toward an ever accelerating evolution. Superstitious belief systems based in bronze/iron-age cults like the Abrahamic faiths will wane as our collective scientifically reached knowledge eclipses our collective ignorance of how the human brain functions.

[kataklysmozarella]

Do you really believe that an exponential intelligence augmentation will lead to an allmighty overmind in a state of unimaginable happiness?

Yes? well then i truly envy you for this notion.

[kataklysmozarella]

Well, there is a long history of eschatological salvation expectations (Naherwartungen);

many of them resulting in gruesome desasters.

And the enthusiastic notions about transhumanism are, in my opinion, an actual example of this phenomenon.

I think there’s a good chance that the ''technological singularity'' (as unstoppable as it might be ) simply leads to an existence of INFINITE boredom and desperation.