The word singularity can have multiple definitions, but in the specific realm of technology it refers to artificial intelligence progressing to the point of greater-than-human intelligence. In Vernor Vinge’s essay The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era, he proposes the idea that there will be superhuman intelligence before 2030. Vinge specifies four ways this could happen; advancements in artificial intelligence, computer networks become self-aware, computer/human interfaces become so intimate that humans evolve into a new species, and biological science improves the natural human intellect. Is it possible that machines will rule over the humans and if so is there a way to prevent this from happening?

People worry that machines will obtain power over the human population, but Jonathan Strickland questions that possibility by stating, “It might not even be physically possible to achieve the advances necessary to create the singularity effect.” Strickland stands behind his statement by discussing the details of Moore’s Law and quantum physics in his article What’s the Technological Singularity? If the physical limit is reached before we can develop machines that can think as well or better than humans,reaching singularity may never happen. Physical limitations can provide a stopping point on the development of technology, but if there are limitations when will they be reached? After machines already have power over the human population?

Ian Thorpe suggest that singularity is already happening in his article Don’t Fear the Singularity(It’s Already Here). Thorpe claims that singularity is not “an artificial intelligence, a supercomputer, or set of nanorobots or cybernetic implants running amok. It is something called distributed cognition.” Distributed cognition is simply defined as the collective intelligence of diverse people working together through technology. Just like the singularity, it is unclear as to what is happening now, let alone where it will lead in the future. “But for the most part the technologies we use are not intelligent in their own right, nor are they self-aware and neither do they have agency to make decisions and take actions for themselves. It is the super-position of human intent over new means of connecting and communicating that creates this new super-human intelligence.”

Will technological singularity happen, is there a way to prevent it, or is it happening now? These are answers I do not know, but I do realize that human population is a very complex species that technology cannot become.