Brent Kearney

The technological singularity is a point in time when a self-aware artificial intelligence (AI) recursively increases its own intelligence, leading to an “intelligence explosion” of unimaginable scale. Some people consider this project to be the fastest way, perhaps even the only way, for us to solve our most serious problems. As a species, we may not be smart enough to solve the big problems of the human condition, such as war, psychopathy, environmental sustainability, etc., so the idea is to create “super intelligences” that will show us how to fix the potentially civilization-destroying problems we face.

Much of the thinking and effort into strong AI development concerns the obvious risk of the project — how do we ensure that the resulting super-intelligence will be friendly? Or, as Johnathan Goldstein puts it in his interview with AI and robotics researcher Professor Noel Sharkey:

… twenty years from now, you think it’s more likely that a robot will be changing my bedpans than chasing me down the street, with lasers coming out of it’s eyes?

Dr. Sharkey thought that the latter scenario would be very unlikely.

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Throughout the summer of 2009, FastForward Radio did a special series that they called A World Transformed, which provided an overview of the emerging technologies that are poised to radically transform our societies and ourselves in ways that are hardly imaginable. Although the audio sometimes sounds like they’re speaking through a plastic bag into a tin can attached by a string, from the bottom of a well, the interviews with some of the most knowledgeable people in the world on these topics makes listening very worthwhile.

If you’re interested in learning about some exciting developments in science & technology, then I highly recommend that you listen to these podcasts — they’ll blow your mind:

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