Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to present the great revolution represented by the technological singularity that could occur in the future. What is Singularity? It is the characteristic of what is unique: infrequent, out of the ordinary or extraordinary. Technological singularity is the hypothesis that considers the unrestrained technological growth of artificial super intelligence. According to this hypothesis, the rampant action of an upgradeable intelligent agent with self-improvement capabilities (such as a computer that executes software-based artificial intelligence) would generate more and more quickly robots endowed with a super powerful intelligence that, qualitatively, could surpass all human intelligence.
The term “singularity” was used in the 1950s by John von Neumann, in the sense that technological progress would be associated with accelerated change. The concept of technological singularity was first proposed by British cryptologist Irving John Good in 1965. Technological singularity is achieved when an ultra-intelligent machine can overcome all the intellectual activities of every smarter man. As long as an ultra-intelligent machine can design even better machines, there would undoubtedly be an “explosion of intelligence”, and man’s intelligence would be left behind. Thus, the first ultra-intelligent machine would be the last invention that man would need to make.
The hypothesis that the machine could soon overtake man has a name. This is “technological singularity”, a term used for the first time in the essay The Coming Technological Singularity, published by the American science fiction author Vernor Vinge in 1993. It designates an uncertain date in which artificial intelligence will surpass ours, thus inaugurating a new era impossible for our human brain to conceive. Vinge himself had his forerunners and inspirers, from mathematician Stanislaw Ulam’s reflections on the exponential acceleration of progress to the writings of Isaac Asimov (The Last Question, 1956) and Philip K. Dick (A governing machine, 1960; The electric ant, 1970), passing through the hypotheses of statistician Irving John Good about ultra-intelligent machines.
Raised as a key problem by Silicon Valley industries and their organic intellectuals, the singularity was transformed during the 2000s into a school of thought. Some, like Raymond Kurzweil, see it as a positive and desirable event. Although this optimism is a minority, there is agreement that the indisputable and exponential advance of technical progress makes uniqueness inevitable. Instead of trying to stop it, it would be important to prepare humanity for its emergence, in order to limit its negative consequences.
In 1950, British computer scientist Alan Turing was already speculating about the emergence of thinking machines in his work “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, and the term “artificial intelligence” (AI) was coined in 1956 by the scientist John McCarthy. In the 1990s, the artificial intelligence community set aside a logic-based approach, which involved creating rules to guide a computer how to act, for a statistical approach, using databases and asking the machine to analyze and solve them problems on their own. Experts believe that machine intelligence will match that of humans by 2050, thanks to a new era in their ability to learn. Computers are already beginning to assimilate information from collected data. This means that we are creating machines that can teach themselves and also how to communicate by simulating human speech, as with smartphones and their virtual assistant systems.
A neural network of an Artificial Intelligence system is capable of analyzing more than a billion data in a few seconds, being an incredible tool to support a decision maker within an organization, thus guaranteeing the best option among the possible ones. As the data collected is constantly updated, Artificial Intelligence systems also always update their results, enabling managers to have access to recent information on variations that have occurred in an organization’s environment. Machine learning is a field of computer science that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. In data analysis, machine learning is a method used to design complex models and algorithms that lend themselves to prediction. In commercial use, this is known as predictive analytics. These analytical models allow researchers, data scientists, engineers and analysts to “produce reliable and repeatable decisions and results” and discover “hidden insights” by learning historical relationships and trends in the data.
Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, the world is facing gigantic transformations. It is a new era in which the fundamental rules that regulated the activities of organizations are being rewritten. Artificial intelligence systems don’t just mean automating many processes to make them more efficient. These Artificial Intelligence systems are making the world go through a fundamental transition with machines developing beyond their historical role as a tool by becoming “self-employed”. As a result, Artificial Intelligence systems are therefore changing the true nature of the work that is requiring management of operations with machines and workers to be processed quite differently compared to the past.
In recent years, we have seen surprising progress in areas such as independent learning, forecasting, autonomous navigation, computer vision and video gameplay. Computers can now do complex engineering calculations, trade shares on the stock exchanges in the order of milliseconds, automated cars are appearing more and more on our streets and artificially intelligent assistants have invaded our homes. The coming years will present us with even more advances, with Artificial Superintelligence through machines that can learn from their own experiences, adapt to new situations and understand abstractions and analogies. Human-level machine intelligence has a good chance of being developed until the middle of the 21st century, which can result in Artificial Superintelligence. Artificial Superintelligence will be the first technology to potentially surpass humans in all dimensions. Until now, human beings have had a monopoly on decision-making and therefore have had control over everything. With Artificial Superintelligence, this can end. A wide range of consequences can occur, including extremely good consequences and consequences as bad as the extinction of the human species.
2045 is the year foreseen for the technological singularity that marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new human cycle, where man and machine will be integrated and where Artificial Intelligence goes far beyond human intelligence. Technology is the big star of the digital age, but man remains the main character. If man does not evolve through technology, it will have been of no use. The techniques that have evolved in the field of artificial intelligence are similar to the techniques that the brain uses, according to Raymond Kurzweil, the greatest futurist in the world. Machines learn human tasks, and in 2029 artificial and human intelligence will be the same, and in 2045, a single machine will be more intelligent than the whole of humanity.
Artificial Superintelligence can contribute decisively to scientific and technological advancement aiming to provide humanity with the necessary resources to face the internal threats to planet Earth that threaten the survival of humanity such as pandemics and earthquakes, as well as the catastrophic climate change that may occur from mid-21st century. In addition, it can contribute to scientific and technological advances (biotechnology, nanotechnology and neurotechnology) to increase cognitive capacity and overcome physical and psychological limitations of human beings based on transhumanism.
Evolution has given humanity more sophisticated intelligence than any animal on the planet and humans have used that intelligence to overcome their biological deficits. Transhumanism talks about using this dynamic to not only impact the world around us, but to increase or even replace our biology with technology. While mankind corrected poor vision with corrective lenses, straightened a person’s teeth with braces, or countless other examples of human beings altering bodies or senses through technology, the transhumanist wants to replace the eye entirely or make mental transfers.
As computer technologies advance alongside biotechnology, there is an increasing convergence between the two in the form of neural interfaces that in the future may open the door to link your mind directly to Artificial Intelligence, in order to facilitate greater learning, transfer mental health and overcome neurological conditions. How to make the human being significantly improve in a matter of decades, or even a few years? The answer is transhumanism, a movement determined to use revolutionary technologies to transform humanity into something superior. It is important to take into account that transhumanism would have consequences that would influence all areas of knowledge.
The Artificial Superintelligence may also contribute to scientific and technological advances, aiming to provide humanity with the necessary resources to face the threats coming from outer space and human beings to take them to new habitats in the solar system and outside of it in search of their survival with the impact of asteroids, the distancing of the Moon in relation to the Earth, with the collision between the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies, the death of the Sun and the end of the Universe in which we live. With machines smarter than we are, with Artificial Superintelligence, humanity will be able to use them to solve scientific and technological problems that ensure the survival of the human species even with the end of the Universe in which we live by paving the way for parallel universes.
Even if Artificial Superintelligence produces benefits for humanity, there is a risk that it will be used for evil and not for the good of humanity. The immediate consequence of the progress of artificial intelligence is the rise of unemployment. This negative social effect is already happening and is inevitable because it results from economic forces that are out of control. Artificial intelligence is positive for the capitalist who will use it to face his competitors in a more competitive way, given that it would provide, among other advantages, the increase of his productivity and the reduction of his costs. However, it would also be extremely negative for the capitalist system because it tends to reduce the income available to the mass of workers excluded from production, thus contributing to the fall in the demand for products and services and, consequently, the profits earned. Its impact on society would be devastating with mass unemployment resulting from its widespread use.
There are extremely negative scenarios such as the super-intelligent machines themselves deciding to destroy human beings, for example, ending our civilization and infrastructure. Artificial Superintelligence can represent the extinction of the human race, according to scientist Stephen Hawking, who published an article addressing this issue on May 1, 2014 in The Independent. Hawking said that technologies are developing at such a dizzying pace that they will become uncontrollable to the point of endangering humanity. Hawking concludes: today, there would be time to stop; tomorrow it would be too late. The indiscriminate development of artificial intelligence could indicate the end of humanity. At the time of Stephen Hawking’s death in March 2018, this famous quote by the astrophysicist echoed in the press and social media. For a long time relegated to science fiction records, the fear of artificial intelligence has been rooted in public debate for some years, associated with both the massive automation of occupations and mass unemployment and the no less terrifying prospect of killer robots.
From philosopher and researcher Nick Bostrom to Elon Musk, founder of the Tesla and SpaceX companies, several personalities thus multiply the warnings about the existential risk that “superintelligent” and potentially uncontrollable machines would cause to fall on humanity. For the Tesla owner, his danger would be even greater than that of the atomic bomb. Some theorists, like Raymond Kurzweil, think that the pace of technological innovation is accelerating and that the next 50 years may produce not only radical technological advances, but possibly a technological singularity, which can fundamentally change the nature of human beings. Transhumanists who anticipate this massive technological change generally maintain that it is desirable. However, some are also concerned about the possible dangers of extremely rapid technological change and propose options to ensure that advanced technology is used responsibly. For example, Nick Bostrom has written extensively on the existential risks to humanity’s future well-being, including those that could be created by emerging technologies.
Nick Bostrom states in his book Superintelligence that Artificial Superintelligence poses a risk that threatens the premature extinction of intelligent life on Earth, or the permanent and drastic destruction of its potential for a desirable future development. Bostrom explained that Artificial Superintelligence requires that better control mechanisms be developed. Bostrom says that we will need to have these control mechanisms before creating smart systems by attracting the leading experts in mathematics and computer science into this field. He suggests that there is a strong research collaboration between the security community and the development of Artificial Superintelligence, and for all parties involved to incorporate the Principle of the Common Good in all long-term Artificial Intelligence projects. This is a unique technology, said Bostrom, which must be developed for the common good of humanity.
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* Fernando Alcoforado, 80, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).
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