Why hasn't the Singularity gone mainstream (yet?) (power, advance, hardware)

[Josseppie]

This is yet another example as to why I say the singularity is in 2030. Also, I will have no problem dating a robot.

This is from the Independent:

Flirting with a computer and even falling in love will be possible within just 15 years, a futurist has predicted.

The link: 'Humans will be able to fall in love with computers within the next 15 years' - Gadgets and Tech - Life & Style - The Independent

[Josseppie]

One of the things I get asked in here a lot is even if robots get as small as a blood cell how will they move? So when I happen to run across this article that address that issue I thought I would post it here.

This is from Phys.org:

Meet MagnetoSperm! No, it's not a precursor to a movie called 'X-Men: The Next Generation' – it's a tiny, swimming robot inspired by sperm cells. Described in the journal Applied Physics Letters, such microrobots – if further scaled down – could become valuable tools for in vitro fertilization, delivering targeted drugs into the body or even performing minimally invasive surgical procedures.

Read more at: MagnetoSperm: A tiny swimming robot inspired by human sperm

[Josseppie]

Honestly I am not sure what to make of this except to say that if it works we could see some major advancements in computing power by 2020.

This is from IFL Science:

Let me introduce The Machine- HP’s latest invention that could revolutionize the computing world. According to HP, The Machine is not a server, workstation, PC, device or phone but an amalgamation of all these things. It’s designed to be able to cope with the masses of data produced from the Internet of Things, which is the concept of a future network designed to connect a variety of objects and gadgets.

The result is a system six times more powerful than existing servers that requires eighty times less energy. According to HP, The Machine can manage 160 petabytes of data in a mere 250 nanoseconds. And, what’s more, this isn’t just for huge supercomputers- it could be used in smaller devices such as smartphones and laptops. During a keynote speech given at Discover, chief technology officer Martin Fink explained that if the technology was scaled down, smartphones could be fabricated with 100 terabytes of memory.




Read more at New Type Of Computer Capable Of Calculating 640TBs Of Data In One Billionth Of A Second, Could Revolutionize Computing | IFLScience

[Josseppie]

This is other example of how computers will continue to advance exponentially after the integrated circuit comes to a end.

This is from Phys.org:

When it comes to electronics, silicon will now have to share the spotlight. In a paper recently published in Nature Communications, researchers from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering describe how they have overcome a major issue in carbon nanotube technology by developing a flexible, energy-efficient hybrid circuit combining carbon nanotube thin film transistors with other thin film transistors. This hybrid could take the place of silicon as the traditional transistor material used in electronic chips, since carbon nanotubes are more transparent, flexible, and can be processed at a lower cost.

Electrical engineering professor Dr. Chongwu Zhou and USC Viterbi graduate students Haitian Chen, Yu Cao, and Jialu Zhang developed this energy-efficient circuit by integrating carbon nanotube (CNT) thin film transistors (TFT) with thin film transistors comprised of indium, gallium and zinc oxide (IGZO).

Read more at: Move over, silicon, there's a new circuit in town

[Woof]

I think I may have said this back around the beginning - I forget - but I have no problem believing that there MIGHT be some sort of singularity around 2030-2100, especially since they're making a beginning at quantum computing (which by the way won't work quite as reliably as ordinary computing) and true artificial intelligence (which by the way will need the development of some types of emotion, according to Kaku).

The problem is with believing that our civilization will last long enough in approximately current form to continue with funding and advances in technology.

The nightmare scenario is one that bothered me after 9-11, but which I had shelved until recently. The world is filling with increasingly violent and irrational terrorist groups, which seem to be very well funded out of Saudi Arabia etc. What if a single one of those - say for example al Qaeda - finally gets a small nuke? What if they manage to smuggle it to DC and set it off? What if they then claim (lying) that they have 2 more, positioned around LA and NYC, and will set them up unless the US implements Sharia law, including the destruction of higher education and research?

Could we risk losing two more major cities? Might these terrorist groups go on to plunge the entire world into another Dark Age, if we capitulate and they do the same to other countries?

At the very least this would derail technology improvements for a good long time.

It's not as far-fetched an idea as some people seem to think. Nuclear weapons have been around since 1945, and the US developed small tactical battlefield nukes in the 1950s, capable of being operated by two-man teams. The only thing hard about it is refining enough uranium or plutonium to make a critical mass. Eventually, terrorist groups with their huge funding will be able to get one. At the very least, they will be able to buy or steal one from Iran when it cranks up steady large-scale industrial manufacture of them.

There are other problems that could crash world civilization, but in my opinion the above is the only scenario that is likely to happen eventually.

[Josseppie]

^

If there is a major nuclear war or a asteroid hits the planet before 2030 I would agree it would set back the singularity. Honestly I do not see that happening though. Anything else will have little if any impact. Even the great depression and both world wars in the 20th century had no impact on how fast computers advanced. It did not make them advance faster or slower. Why I am 99.9% confident the singularity will happen by 2030.

[Josseppie]

This picture and article describes how merging with technology will improve our bodies. This will happen in the next 15-25 years. This is a important part of the singularity, merging with computers.

This is from Policy Mic:



Nanotechnology could change human biology forever. From prosthetic limbs and new burn treatments, to cancer detection and bones that heal in days or weeks, nanotech could be the future of medicine.

Nanotechnology is any technology that allows for manipulation of matter beginning at the nanometer (nm) scale, commonly on the 1–100 nm range. According to nanomedical expert Frank Boehm, "[t]he ability to work at this scale will allow for the fabrication of unique materials and devices with improved and novel properties, such as enhanced water repellency (superhydrophobicity) or the increased performance of chemical reactions (catalysis) due to dramatically increased active surface areas."

The link: Here's a Surprising Look at How Nanotechnology Could Reengineer Our Bodies - PolicyMic

[Woof]

Yes, nanotechnology and printed organs etc could result in practical immortality, barring severe accidents. Oh, there was something involving telomeres also, preventing our dna from unravelling after their Hayflick Limit...... or something like that, further down the road.

[Josseppie]

^
Agreed and its going to happen faster then most people realize. Starting in the 2020's. That is only 6 years away. Why I call the 2020's the pre singularity.

In a article I recently posted it said what is coming better then what I have been saying. This is what it said:

Two major paradigm shifts will take place before the Singularity, a first one around 2019-2020, and the other around 2029-2030.

Life will change so much at each of these stages that I like to refer to them as the transformations toward Human Life 2.0 and Human Life 3.0, respectively. The Singularity, which could happen any time during the 2040's, will mark the shift to Human Life 4.0. This timeline stops at 2030 as it is too difficult to predict the rate of change after that.

The link: http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/06/10/...n-ever-before/

The second round (life 2.0) is the biotech revaluation.
The third round (life 3.0) is the nano tech revaluation.

I have been saying these dates for a few years now just using different terminology. The pre singularity at 2020, singularity at 2030 and reaching the end of the singularity at 2045.

[Woof]

A lot of the things in that article remind me of the "gee whiz" World Fairs of half a century ago, Josseppie, they're things that are theoretically possible but many of them take a long time to get from drawing board, through the political process, and into mainstream use - one example being the vac-trains, and also safety testing for new medical technologies.

Also we're approaching the theoretical limit of our current two-bit computer technology, and any further advances will rely on quantum computing, which is only beginning to be understood. It'll be hard to predict a timetable for that development.