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The Technological Singularity By Murray Shanahan

Decent Essays

Most people cannot comprehend that the actions that they are committing today are leading humanity into what seems to be a dark future. This is evident through the fact that most people do not reflect on what is occurring around the world, and on if they continue to consume everything that is given to them they will contribute to what seems like the logical future based off of the patterns of the past 100 years. Society is consuming “micro-machines into the body,” Facebook, anti-earth protecting tendencies, and genetically modified foods. The things just listed were a summary of what leads into several complexities that have been discussed in class. In addition to the things mentioned, another thing that is ridiculed by many people is the idea that artificial intelligence will be powerful and lead to robotic like creatures that are far more intelligent and capable than us …show more content…

Nonetheless, the theme that seems to be reccurring here is that humans are incapable of comprehending the new and unknown, this along with not taking evidence seriously will lead to the demise of the current form of humanity. According to The Technological Singularity by Murray Shanahan, the term singularity which was borrowed from physics, is a “point in space or time … where mathematics breaks down” and which such break down humans’ “capacity for comprehension” breaks as well (p. 78). As Shanahan explains, an example of this is the center of a black hole or the instant of the big bang (p. 78). Furthermore, the term singularity in this book does not necessarily possess the same definition that was just stated, instead it refers to “exponential technological progress” that would be so dramatic that human affairs as

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