The Singularity and attendant scientific advancement

[Zhade]

As an enthusiastic supporter of science, I celebrate every great new invention (Skinput ftw) and evolution of possibilities through discovery and experimentation. Along with that goes my diehard dedication to rigorous critical thinking.

I've read a lot recently, in transhumanist and futurist blogs, about the debate concerning a theorized technological singularity -- the point at which technology advances so rapidly our ability to predict it breaks down. My question is, can scientific advancement really continue to accelerate? And if so, will its results be shared with all, or only available to the rich and powerful?

[lazarus]

1. Eventually

it will be shared by all, simply because tech gets cheaper and cheaper. The only ones who won't join the singularity, imo, are Luddites and those who think their religion would oppose it (mark of the Beast!!!).

[GAspnes]

10. or as William Gibson is said to have said

"The future is already here - it is just unevenly distributed."

[Jim__]

2. Do you think we can predict technological advancement today?

Back in the 50s and 60s, I don't believe anyone predicted the revolution in information processing or anything like the internet. Most of the predictions that I remember were for flying cars and robots. I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question, but I don't think we can predict technological advances today.

[RagAss]

3. I'm still waiting for the flying car. Commuting sucks !

[Fumesucker]

4. Asimov had a throwaway line in his story "Hostess" that predicted something like the internet..

That story was published in 1951..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostess_(short_story)

http://preem.tejat.net/~tseng/asimov/Stories/Story115.html

[tinrobot]

5. Some people were forward thinking in the 50's and 60's

A lot of our cool computer technologies (graphical interfaces, the mouse, touch screens, email, hypertext, graphics, networking) were conceived and developed in the 50's and 60's, but couldn't be implemented until decades later when the hardware finally caught up, and prices dropped enough for mass adoption and refinement.

[Occulus]

8. You almost have to look to science fiction in TV and film

Popular culture, at least, has advanced to the point that we can actually visualize these technologies being used long before they're ever developed or even officially proposed. That is a big leap forward for the development of real-world technologies that simply didn't exist as we know it in the 50s and 60s.

Take the SyFy series Caprica, for example. There are two technologies used on that show that are probably no more than a decade away for us in real life: e-sheets and electroreactive glass. E-sheets are a kind of paper lookalike that also has all the properties of a simple touchscreen display; however, they can be bent and folded like regular paper (and are just as thin).

The electroreactive glass looks like an ordinary window of arbitrary size in someone's house until it's placed into display mode, at which time the entire sheet of glass (or only a portion of the panel) becomes a true-color computing and media display. The disadvantage to this is, of course, that anyone outside the home sees a reversed image of what's being displayed, because the glass is still glass and has no backing. Today's emerging OLED technology seems to be a cross between the two, and if that technology is refined in the right directions (and that's pretty likely), we may well end up with both devices as portrayed on the show.

You have to imagine a piece of technology before it can be developed, and today's CG effects in television and film allow us to do that in ways we've never had in previous decades. Huge budgets are no longer necessary for utterly convincing digital fakery (you can even do it yourself, at home, if you have the right open-source tools), and that fakery almost certainly will inspire someone, somewhere, to "make it real".

(The PADD devices used on Star Trek: TNG are almost identical to the iPad. There could well have been some inspiration there along the lines of what I'm describing.)

[Nihil]

9. Slight tangent ...

> The electroreactive glass looks like an ordinary window of arbitrary size
> in someone's house until it's placed into display mode, at which time the
> entire sheet of glass (or only a portion of the panel) becomes a true-color
> computing and media display. The disadvantage to this is, of course, that
> anyone outside the home sees a reversed image of what's being displayed,
> because the glass is still glass and has no backing.

Solution: Double-glazing! The innermost pane of electroreactive glass is used
to display the data whilst the outermost pane displays a black plane.

:hi:

(In practice, you'd probably have triple-glazing with the truly outermost pane
being non-electroreactive but highly toughened to protect the more valuable
inner panes.)

[tinrobot]

6. I thought the singularity had a slightly different definition.

It's where technology has the ability to replicate itself without our help -- the point where technology starts to "evolve" on it's own.

[lazarus]

7. there are a lot of different definitions

I've always viewed it as the point where humans and technology essentially merge, and the human race as we know it ceases to be.