Singularity Hypotheses: An Overview

Eden, Amnon H.; Steinhart, Eric; Pearce, David; Moor, James H.

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-32560-1_1

Cited by 32 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…This point of ‘Singularity’, a concept attributed to von Neumann ( Ulam, 1958 ), has prompted much debate (e.g. Vinge, 1993 ; Chalmers, 2010 ; Magee and Devezas, 2011 ; Eden et al., 2012 ). This is aside from its mathematical interpretation ( Magee and Devezas, 2011 ).…”

Section: The Six Genres Of Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptualising technology, its development and future: The six genres of technology

Harwood

Eaves

2020

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

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Highlights Forecasting the long-term development of technology is challenging. The six Genres offers a parsimonious framework to examine future developments. This examines various configurations of human – artefact relationships. It identifies autonomy, intelligence, language, and autopoiesis as key features. The sixth genre is established as Interconnected, autopoietic, technological beings.

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Section: The Six Genres Of Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptualising technology, its development and future: The six genres of technology

Harwood

Eaves

2020

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

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“…Technological singularity usually refers to the scenario in which technological advances lead to "the emergence of artificial superintelligent agents-software-based synthetic minds-as the 'singular' outcome of accelerating progress in computing technology. This singularity results from an 'intelligence explosion' (Good 1965): a process in which software-based intelligent minds enter a 'runaway reaction' of self-improvement cycles, with each new and more intelligent generation appearing faster than its predecessor" (Eden et al, 2012). According to Verner Vinge (1993), "The acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this century.…”

Section: Technological Singularitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychotherapy in the era of artificial intelligence: Therapist Panoptes

Brailas¹

2019

HomVir

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“What will happen when an artificial intelligence entity has access to all the information stored about me online, with the ability to process my information efficiently and flawlessly? Will such an entity not be, in fact, my ideal therapist?” Would there ever come a point at which you would put your trust in an omniscient, apperceptive, and ultra-intelligent robotic therapist? There is a horizon beyond which we can neither see nor even imagine; this is the technological singularity moment for psychotherapy. If human intelligence is capable of creating an artificial intelligence that surpasses its creators, then this intelligence would, in turn, be able to create an even superior next-generation intelligence. An inevitable positive feedback loop would lead to an exponential intelligence growth rate. In the present paper, we introduce the term Therapist Panoptes as a working hypothesis to investigate the implications for psychotherapy of an artificial therapeutic agent: one that is able to access all available data for a potential client and process these with an inconceivably superior intelligence. Although this opens a new perspective on the future of psychotherapy, the sensitive dependence of complex techno-social systems on their initial conditions renders any prediction impossible. Artificial intelligence and humans form a bio-techno-social system, and the evolution of the participating actors in this complex super-organism depends upon their individual action, as well as upon each actor being a coevolving part of a self-organized whole.

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“…Hypotheses of technological singularity have many possible interpretations (Eden et al., ) but the use of the term by Gardy and Loman invites comparisons with “The Singularity,” the hypothetical point where artificial intelligence leads to runaway technological growth (see Kurzweil, ). A singularity is a point of no return, beyond which further developments and consequences are unforeseeable; hence Hanson's (, p. 45) general definition of a singularity as “an overwhelming departure from prior trends, with uneven and dizzyingly rapid change thereafter.” The “sequencing singularity” vision is indisputably one with grand ambitions, matched by a name that connotes dramatic, epoch‐changing technological change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Portable sequencing, genomic data, and scale in global emerging infectious disease surveillance

Shaw

Sugden

2018

Geography and Environment

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Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) occur when pathogens unpredictably spread into new contexts. EID surveillance systems seek to rapidly identify EID outbreaks to contain spread and improve public health outcomes. Sequencing data has historically not been integrated into real‐time responses, but portable DNA sequencing technology has prompted optimism among epidemiologists. Specifically, attention has focused on the goal of a “sequencing singularity”: the integration of portable sequencers in a worldwide event‐based surveillance network with other digital data (Gardy & Loman, Nature Reviews Genetics, 19, 2018, p. 9). The sequencing singularity vision is a powerful socio‐technical imaginary, shaping the discourse around the future of portable sequencing. Ethical and practical issues are bound by the vision in two ways: they are framed only as obstacles, and they are formulated only at the scales made visible by its implicit geography. This geography privileges two extremes of scale – the genomic and the global – and leaves intermediate scales comparatively unmapped. We explore how widespread portable sequencing could challenge this geography. Portable sequencers put the ability to produce genomic data in the hands of the individual. The explicit assertion of rights over data may therefore become a matter disputed more at an interpersonal scale than an international one. Portable sequencers also promise ubiquitous, indiscriminate sequencing of the total metagenomic content of samples, raising the question of what (or who) is under surveillance and inviting consideration of the human microbiome and more‐than‐human geographies. We call into question a conception of a globally integrated stream of sequencing data as composed mostly of “noise,” within which signals of pathogen “emergence” are “hidden,” considering it instead from the perspective of recent work into more‐than‐human geographies. Our work highlights a practical need for researchers to consider both the alternative possibilities they foreclose as well as the exciting opportunities they move towards when they deploy their visions of the future.

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Singularity Hypotheses: An Overview

Cited by 32 publications

References 11 publications

Conceptualising technology, its development and future: The six genres of technology

Conceptualising technology, its development and future: The six genres of technology

Psychotherapy in the era of artificial intelligence: Therapist Panoptes

Portable sequencing, genomic data, and scale in global emerging infectious disease surveillance

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