Computer genuis Steve Jobs didn’t live to see the technological singularity he helped usher in, but it may be coming faster than predicted. Most futurists speculate the techno-singularity will be set off by the creation of hyper-intelligent machines with intellectual and problem solving capabilities as far ahead of their human creators as we are ahead of rabbits. Our only real hope to remain relevant in such a future would be to augment our own capabilities and/or integrate with our artificial counterparts.
IBM has announced they hope to reach one of the first major milestones on the way to the singularity within ten years:
Big Blue is working hard to make sure that the next decade is its biggest yet in computing advances, with projects in the works to create the world’s most powerful supercomputer and one with the same number of nodes as the human brain.
These future devices don’t have to be aggressive, Skynet is not inevitable, they may be downright helpful. It’s just that humans are made of atoms that they might be able to use for something else …