The Singularity - Semi Perm
The singularity is a term that was adopted and appropriated by Vernor Vinge to describe the point where technology reaches a point of such exponential growth that we can no longer use previous models of prediction to map the next steps/leaps in technology. (Vinge, Vernor, 1993).Â
Ray Kurzweil uses the term âthe singularityâ in explaining the coming urgency to consider the effects of exponential changes in Artificial Intelligence, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. (Ray Kurzweil, 2005).
To me, and my project this semester the singularity is about when that change takes over, what will the future of content sharing and social media look like. When we have finally overcome the limitations of the current digital-only ways of sharing will we blend the two together. Creating phygital, a term Laurent explores in his recent paper âBeyond mobile AR, MR and VR, shall we start investigating about the phygital, a combination of physical and digital?â (Antonczak, L. 2017)
Semi-Permanent gave @bctadventure and I the chance to speak to some amazing influential people during the after party over some nibbles and drinks.
One of the questions that we couldnât help but ask was their opinion on the singularity and their insights surrounding emerging technologies such as Mixed Realities, Augmented Intelligence and the possibility of Artificial Intelligence in the future.Â
Take a listen to a few of the answers we got during the event.
Afterwards, we had a one on one conversation with many of the speaker but the most notable were Sisel as she completely dismisses virtual reality (at least in its current state) however when asked about the singularity she had a few things to say.
She referred to Kaspero and how we are already in the midst of the singularity, granted we have a while to go, it has already begun. see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJarxpYyoFI for more information on what this is about
She was overall mostly excited for what AI could do - but extremely not-excited for the highly likely event that humanity loses their own independence and donât do things themselves.Â
 Nicholas Kamuda: the sensory design director for Microsoft mixed realities has some really interesting views on the singularity. He is working towards allowing technology and physical spaces to exist at the same time. When asked about the singularity he refers to the AI singularity and mentioned how stupid AI is and how far away we would be from the singularity from that perspective.
Some of the questions we asked being answered during QnA with Nicholas: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwTwTb0EGf71THkyZEN4VDVySE0/view?usp=sharing
Laurent Antonczak, Catherine Papett, Towards a Mobile Enhancement Of Glocal Heritage? (2017)Â
Vinge, Vernor. (1993). The Coming Technological Singularity.
Ray Kurzweil. 2005. The singularity is near: When humans transcend biology