Topics in Digital Culture

topics in digital cultureQUESTION 1 - The concept singularity is a hypothesis on the not so far future of human life on earth. According to Ray Kurzweil, the scientist, inventor, futurist and author of The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology; singularity is a stage in our near future where technological development will start to accrue at an inconceivable speed that normal humans cannot keep up with, let alone contain. This possible technological change, which is not recognizable to us right now, will have a deep and forceful impact. It will eventually lead to an irreversible transformation determining human life, automatically combining human body and mind with technology. This idea refers to the power of building machines containing all human intelligence and abilities. This will eventually lead to superhuman intelligence and the inability to distinguish post singularity between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality. As stated by Kurzweil “Impending singularity is that the pace of change of our human created technology is accelerating and its powers are expanding at an exponential pace.”
Currently computers can perform large amounts of human capabilities that in the past required human intelligence in order to execute. The list of ways computers can now beat human capabilities is quickly increasing. It is believed that within several decades technological development will overrun all human intelligence and capabilities, eventually resulting in recognition power, problem solving skills, and emotional moral intelligence of the human brain itself. Kurzweil adds that singularity will ultimately result in a world that is still human but transcends our biological roots as well as a completely irreversibly transforming humanity, civilization and our own body and mind. A prediction regarding singularity can result in human and machine emerging in order to become super intelligent using them (the machines) to extend our intellectual