Technological Singularity Overview for Journalists

Michael Anissimov
Up-to-date as of 4/1/2009

Journalists often ask me about what is happening in the Singularity movement, who the major names, ideas, and organizations are, and so on. To make all that info publicly available in one place, I've created this short page.

What does "the Singularity" mean?

• The original meaning, given by Vernor Vinge in 1993, was "the technological creation of greater than human intelligence". Vinge wrote, "What are the consequences of this event? When greater-than-human intelligence drives progress, that progress will be much more rapid. In fact, there seems no reason why progress itself would not involve the creation of still more intelligent entities -- on a still-shorter time scale."
• Other meanings have emerged since then, usually associated with accelerating technological change, but these are logically independent from the original concept.
• Greater than human intelligence and accelerating technological change are often conflated in reporting on the Singularity, causing confusion.
• Oxford philosophy professor and Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, Nick Bostrom, has contributed important and widely influential arguments to the original Vinge idea, in papers such as "How long before superintelligence", where he defines superintelligence as "an intellect that is much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom and social skills", and outlines an argument that superintelligence could be developed before roughly 2035, and "Ethical Issues in Advanced Artificial Intelligence", where he writes "Since the superintelligence may become unstoppably powerful because of its intellectual superiority and the technologies it could develop, it is crucial that it be provided with human-friendly motivations."
• There are three major schools of Singularity thought -- accelerating change, event horizon, and intelligence explosion. The major promulgators of these schools are Ray Kurzweil, Vernor Vinge, and Eliezer Yudkowsky respectively.

The word "Singularity" has been used by many, but the central figures/groups are:

• The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI), based in Palo Alto, CA, whose founder Eliezer Yudkowsky is an artificial intelligence researcher and prominent writer on the Singularity since 1996.
• The Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute (AGIRI), which puts on the annual Conference on Artificial General Intelligence and is headed by long-time AI researcher Ben Goertzel, CEO of Novamente LLC.
• Ray Kurzweil, the inventor whose 2005 book The Singularity is Near is a best-seller. On Kurzweil's popular web site, he invites many thinkers to contribute articles on Singularity-related issues. Kurzweil's website is how I originally got involved in the Singularity in 2001.

Overview on the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI)

• Founded in 2000 by AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, Brian Atkins, and Sabine Atkins
• The Wikipedia article is here.
• The Singularity Institute is a non-profit organization focused on developing a theoretical framework for confirming the long term safety of artificial intelligence designs. A major element of this involves developing a reflective decision theory, building on decades of prior work on decision theory in mathematics and statistics.
• Several employees do AI research for SIAI full time and a larger group of grad students work on the problem in the Bay Area during the summers with assistance from Research Fellow Eliezer Yudkowsky.
• Many consider "real AI", the type pursued by the Singularity Institute, to be centuries away, but the history of science shows that many high impact technologies are considered centuries away even by those closest to them mere years before their development. For intance, Orville Wright said in 1901 that "man will not fly for fifty years" and Ernest Rutherford said in 1933 that "anyone who looked for a source of power in the transformation of the
  atoms was talking moonshine".
• Several notable futurists have voiced support for Friendly AI, including Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostrom, and medical life extension advocate Aubrey de Grey.

Overview on the Singularity Summit (put on by SIAI)

• The Singularity Summit is an annual event put on by the Singularity Institute where influential figures in the fields of business, science and technology discuss the Singularity and issues relating to technologies commonly associated with the Singularity like nanotechnology and robotics.
• The 2006 Summit was held at Stanford, 2007 Summit in San Francisco, 2008 Summit in San Jose, 2009 Summit will be held in New York.
• All Singularity Summit audio and many transcripts are available online at the websites linked in the previous bullet point. Notable presenters include Peter Norvig, Google's Director of Search Quality, Steve Jurvetson, Managing Partner of VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Rodney Brooks, a robotics pioneer from MIT, writer John Horgan, a skeptic of the Singularity, and environmentalist Bill McKibben, another skeptic.
• See "Will machines outsmart man?" at Guardian.co.uk for coverage of the 2008 Singularity Summit, "Coming to Grips with Intelligent Machines" on CNET News for coverage of the 2007 Summit, and "Smarter than thou?" for coverage of the 2006 Summit. Full coverage list of 2008 is here, 2007 is here, and 2006 is here. The 2007 Summit received front-page coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Overview on the Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute

• Founded by AI researcher Ben Goertzel in 2001.
• Mission statement: "Foster the creation of powerful and ethically positive Artificial General Intelligence."
• Sponsored by Novamente LLC, a for-profit software company based in N. Bethesda, MD.
• Novamente LLC is a 20+ person software company headquartered in Silicon Valley, with a development office near Washington, DC.
• See a "Online worlds to be AI incubators" on the BBC and "Virtual pets can learn just like babies" in New Scientist for more on Novamente.

Overview on the Conference on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

• Annual conference. 2008 AGI conference was held in Memphis, Tennessee, the 2009 conference was held in Arlington, Virginia.
• Attended by over 100 researchers representing the emerging field of general AI, also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI).
• While this conference mainly focuses on academic approaches to Artificial Intelligence, the 2009 conference was followed by a workshop on futurism.

Overview on Ray Kurzweil

• Successful inventor, has developed electronic synthesizers, reading machines for the blind, voice recognition software, and much else.
• In his 2005 best-selling book The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil claims that AI will reach human capacity around 2029, from high-resolution brain scanning coupled with faster computers. He also predicts advanced robotics deriving from advances in nanotechnology and other areas.
• Founded Singularity University at NASA Ames Research Center with the help of Google, NASA, and many distinguished scientists. The stated aim is to "assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges."
• Bill Gates calls Kurzweil "the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence".
• An independently produced film on Kurzweil's life, Transcendent Man, will be released on 27 March 2009.
• The Singularity is Near, a film based on Kurzweil's book, will be released in late 2009.

End of overview. For more info, see the Wikipedia page on the technological Singularity.