[Excerpt from manuscript chapter 10]
The diversity and complexity of events in the world seem to reinforce the vision of a global technological solution in the sense of an artificial superintelligence for the 21st century. However, this vision goes beyond the concept of a technological singularity and encompasses various disciplines such as computer science, philosophy and futurology. The singularity refers to a hypothetical point in the future where technological growth rates become exponential and machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence. The concept was popularised by the work of Vernor Vinge (Vinge, 1993) and Ray Kurzweil (Kurzweil, 2005).
From a technological perspective, the singularity is often understood as linear progress in the development of artificial intelligence (AI). Researchers such as Nick Bostrom and Stuart Russell have intensively analysed the potential and, above all, the risks of super-intelligent machines. It is clear that these visions of the future raise profound philosophical and ethical questions, particularly with regard to the nature of consciousness, control over superintelligent systems themselves and the impact on human society.
Literature:
Kurzweil, R. (2005). The singularity is near: When humans transcend biology. Penguin.
Vinge, V. (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 (pp. 11-22). NASA Conference Publication 10129.