2045. This will be the year when computers surpass the brain power of all of mankind. This will be the year of singularity: “the moment when technological change becomes so rapid and profound, it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.” (see source)
By that time, as Raymond Kurzweil predicts, machines would be so smart that machines themselves will be the creators more complicated machines. He based his prediction on the exponential trend resultant from graphing the computing power against time.
Before the human brain becomes obsolete, Kurzweil is more interested in prolonging human life. Machines can exist virtually forever, provided there's an unlimited store of spare parts. He figures that the human body is like a machine. And like a machine, when one part is worn out, it should be easily repairable.
And already we have started to see machines becoming more and more intelligent. Watson beat the 2 human jeopardy champions in a 3-day bout. Suddenly Terminator's doomsday prediction is not so far off. After all, creating a race superior to ours is anti-Darwinian. Are the machines going to squash us like bugs, or will we live in peaceful symbiosis, or are we going to be friends. We have no way of predicting what the superintelligent machines of the future will be.
But we need not fear. At the rate we're producing the “manpower resource” in our country, it's hardly possible to eradicate the whole nation.
Christopher John P. Lao
Entry No. 14
Source:
Lev Grossman's article “sin*gu*lar*i*ty” in Time Asia's February 21, 2011 edition.
Image:
Phillip Toledano
http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2011/1102/singularity.jpg
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