Glossary
singularity
From Wikipedia
The technological singularity is a hypothesized point in the future variously characterized by the technological creation of self-improving intelligence, unprecedentedly rapid technological progress, or some combination of the two.
Statistician I. J. Good first wrote of an "intelligence explosion", suggesting that if machines could even slightly surpass human intellect, they could improve their own designs in ways unseen by their designers, and thus recursively augment themselves into far greater intelligences. Vernor Vinge later called this event "the Singularity" as an analogy between the breakdown of modern physics near a gravitational singularity and the drastic change in society he argues would occur following an intelligence explosion. In the 1980s, Vinge popularized the Singularity in lectures, essays, and science fiction. More recently, some AI researchers have voiced concern over the potential dangers of Vinge's Singularity.
Others, most prominently Ray Kurzweil, define the Singularity as a period of extremely rapid technological progress. Kurzweil argues such an event is implied by a long-term pattern of accelerating change that generalizes Moore's Law to technologies predating the integrated circuit and which he argues will continue to other technologies not yet invented.
Critics of Kurzweil's interpretation consider it an example of static analysis, citing particular failures of the predictions of Moore's Law. The Singularity also draws criticism from anarcho-primitivism and environmentalism advocates.