Will Computers Be Able to Imitate the Human Brain?
Takeaway: The Singularity – or the notion that computer processing will surpass the abilities of the human brain – sounds more like science fiction than the future, which has all kinds of people debating about whether it’s going to happen.
The Singularity. Heard of it? Maybe you’ve seen this term in articles or books or on TV, but it’s confusing. What is it? The answer may be more confusing than the words. It is often referred to as “the next great step in human evolution” or “a science fiction concept” or “the beginning of superhuman intelligence” or to Vernor Vinge (to whom we attribute the origins of Technological Singularity), it represents the time when “shortly after, the human era will be ended.”
Vinge, a professor of mathematics and computer science as well as a respected science fiction writer, coined the term in a 1993 lecture given at the VISION-21 Symposium. His key conclusion was that there will be a merger of human and machine intelligences into a new entity. This, according to Vinge, is The Singularity and because machines will be so much more intelligent than we are, there’s no way for us lowly humans to predict what comes after it.
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