My powerpoint on the Singularity I did from a few years ago.

1. Nitish Kannan

2. Technological Singularity
 The Singularity is the technological creation of
smarter-than-human intelligence. There are several
technologies that are often mentioned as heading in
this direction. The most commonly mentioned is
probably Artificial Intelligence, but there are others:
direct brain-computer interfaces, biological
augmentation of the brain, genetic engineering, ultra-
high-resolution scans of the brain followed by
computer emulation.

3. The Singularity is near!
 Some of these technologies seem likely to arrive much
earlier than the others, but there are nonetheless
several independent technologies all heading in the
direction of the Singularity – several different
technologies which, if they reached a threshold level
of sophistication, would enable the creation of
smarter-than-human intelligence.

4. Why the singularity
 If humans ever discover a cure for cancer, that
discovery will ultimately be traceable to the rise of
human intelligence, so it is not absurd to ask whether
a superintelligence could deliver a cancer cure in short
order. If anything, creating superintelligence only for
the sake of curing cancer would be swatting a fly with a
sledgehammer.

5. History Genome Project
 Sequence 10 years, 2/3rd of the way most of the project
not done.
 Most of the project done in few years
 15 years sequence HIV
 Sequence SARS in 31 days.
 Now we can sequence a virus in a day!

6. Analyze Ray Kurzweil predictions
 Prominent Futurist and founder of Kurzweil technologies. Ray
was the principal developer of the first omni-font optical
character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine
for the blind, the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first text-to-
speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of
recreating the grand piano and other orchestral
instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-
vocabulary speech recognition
 Read the book singularity in Near!
 The Singularity creates speed for two reasons: First, positive
feedback – intelligence gaining the ability to improve
intelligence directly.

7. Technology adoptions
 Half a century to adopt telephones
 Cell phones adopted 8 years

8. Moore’s law

9. Performance of supercomputers

10. Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov

11. Growth in Supercomputer trends

12. END OF MOORE’S LAW?
 First prediction said2002 then, 2022 end of Moore’s
law
 End of Moore's Law
 Won’t be end of exponential computing!
 When one paradigm ends another begins.

13. Why were cell phones adopted?

14. This is why you have a laptop and a
cell phone!
 Deflation
 Brain scanning
 Internet
 Gene sequencing

15. Growth is exponential NOT LINEAR!
 New applications become feasible as price for
performance computing drops!
 10000 dollar IPOD many years ago for the storage you
have that’s what it would have costed.
 IPhone

16. So what will world be like.
 When tracking technology trends
 Human gene sequencing!
 Question of ethics and privacy!
 What will happen to humans when we live among the
machines, will we be part of the machines?

17. More computing power.
 Key Evolution
 Understanding software program of how our body
works
 Gene Sequencing.
 Ethics if you have all you data on a chip, threatens
privacy, and discrimate you at work?

18. Evaluate predictions
Based on Technology trends
 Computers will disappear
 Embeded in clothing!
 Augmented reality.
 Contact lenses

19. Will humans be useless
IBM WATSON

20. IBM Watson
 Code-named "Watson," the IBM computing system is
being designed to rival the human mind's ability to
determine precise answers to natural language
questions and to compute accurate confidences in the
answers. According to Dr. David Ferrucci, leader of the
project team
 Slated to compete on Jeopardy!

21. If that’s what’s possible?

22. Why do I have this?

23. Hope
 We will merge with the machines,
 Hopefully machines won’t take over.
 Idea that if intelligence reaches this stage they can be
unplugged.

24. Paradigm shift
 The paradigm shift rate is now doubling every
decade, so the twenty-first century will see 20,000
years of progress at today's rate.
Computation, communication, biological technologies
(for example, DNA sequencing), brain
scanning, knowledge of the human brain, and human
knowledge in general are all accelerating at an even
faster pace, generally doubling price-
performance, capacity, and bandwidth every year.

25. What will this mean in the coming
years?
 Full emergent virtual reality
 Already getting there brain machine interfaces
 Robotic arms giving feedback
 Exponential growth of intelligence.

26. What can we predict?
 We will have superhumans!
 Brain-Machine interfaces
 Prosthetic devices have improved from heavy, “dumb”
devices
 Will this make us greater risk takers?

27. Brain-Machine Interface, for typing

28. Brain-Machine interface.
 Today we have chips to help treat for
parkinson’s with brain stimulation
 Latest generation has software that can wirelessly be
updated.
 is a closed-loop deep-brain stimulation system. Such a
system would both suppress the tremor-causing
activity of the real subthalamic nucleus and at the
same time act as an artificial subthalamic nucleus.

29. If this is what’s possible
 This changes all the rules!
 What if an enemy hacked the computer and messed
up the software in your chip.
 Worse what if he controlled your behavior, by
stimulation of pain through stimulating your brain
wirelessly or over the internet.

30. According to Dr. Michio kaku
 “Age of Discovery' to the 'Age of Mastery',
 “a period in which we will move from being passive
observers of nature to its active choreographers. This
will give us not only unparalleled possibilities but also
great responsibilities.”

31. Are we all going to live through
surrogates?
 At the age of mastery if experiences are downloadable
over the internet, you can experience them with
sensory input through a Brain-Machine interface?
 Will travel be no longer valuble?
 What happens to travel industry? Tourism may shift to
an online business.
 Live other people experiences?

32. What Happens to our Privacy!
 What if people utilize our Surrogate without our
permission?
 Crimes could be rampant and done anonomously!
 Identity theft!

33. Will we have less value on human
intellect and ability.

34. Robots, Robots everywhere!
Friend or Foe?
 A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been updated for the
21st century with seven small robots playing fairies
alongside carbon-based co-stars.
 We will live amongst the machines?
 Some ethicists may say don’t we already?
 We’re useless without our Iphones or Blackberry’s our
laptops and supercomputers that perform everyday
tasks and calculations?

35. My Prediction
 We will merge with the machines.
 Machines won’t take over, instead we will become part of the
machines. (Machines will become an extension of us)
 In many cases we will control the machines, and they will
enhance our computational cababilities in every way, from
abstract thinking, to complicated computation.
 Think every man is connected to a supercomputer.
 According to Ray Kurzweil, it’s only natural for man to evolve
ever since we reached for a higher branch!

36. Critics say?
 One critic cites a grim vision of a planet devoured by
tiny, self-replicating nanobots that decide humans are
in the way: "They could spread like blowing
pollen, replicate swiftly, and reduce the biosphere to
dust in a matter of days."
 Nanotechnology and self-replicating machines do
pose a substantial threat.

37. MORE PROBLEMS
 One EMP could take out all the machines in an area.
 Or a solar flare could disrupt all machines
working, including humans if we are part of the
machines, rendering our lives useless.
 New viruses for computers, could take over our
intelligence or corrupt us.

39. Sixth Sense Technology
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLEEiQZOYDs

40. What is Sixth Sense technology?
 Sixth Sense is a mini-projector coupled with a camera
and a cellphone—which acts as the computer and your
connection to the Cloud

41. Conclusions
 Growth in technology according to
Ray Kurzweil is that growth is not
Linear, but is exponential, and that’s
How to track technology trends in the future
 We should not fear the machines, we will merge with the
machines.
 The best way to predict the future is to make it!

42. THANK YOU!
Works Cited
 http://web.archive.org/web/20010527181244/http://w
ww.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/Authors/Computing/Goo
d-IJ/SCtFUM.html
 http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=3
 http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-
10/singularity-summit-2009-thus-spake-kurzweil
 http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/11/robots-
perform-shakespeare/
 http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/25939914/w
hen_man__machine_merge/3