Futuristic term "technologicalsingularity "is increasingly entering our life. According to the most pessimistic forecasts of scientists and various experts, not later than 2030 this concept will become a part of our reality. So what does this mysterious phrase mean? With numerous modern encyclopedias, technological singularity is treated as a hypothetical moment when technological progress will acquire such speed and complexity that will be inaccessible to human understanding.
Simply put, artificial intelligence will reacha level of development in which a person can be superfluous, and even a dangerous competitor to "smart" electronic creations. For more than a decade futurists and science fiction writers have frightened us with a possible "revolt of cars". But only relatively recently this hypothetical problem began to be seriously discussed in scientific circles.
For the first time the term "technological singularity"sounded in the article of mathematician and writer Vernon Vinj, presented in 1993 at a symposium held by NASA in conjunction with the Aerospace Institute of Ohio State. Soon the events predicted by scientists and comparable, in his opinion, with the very appearance of man on the planet, began to come true.
Первое проявление такого ключевого и эпохального events, like a technological singularity, did not take long to wait. A turning point in human development and people's consciousness was the 1997th year. In May of that year, designed by experts from IBM, a one and a half electron "monster" Deep Blue, equipped with 250 processors, in a stubborn and tense chess match, defeated the hitherto defeated world champion Garry Kasparov. At that moment, it became clear that the world would never be the same ...
Ход этого поединка, пожалуй, самого весомого confrontation in the history of human civilization deserves special attention. The grandmaster won the first game without any problems. At the beginning of the second Kasparov, trying to lure his electronic opponent into a clever trap, sacrificed two pawns.
Deep Blue this time thinking (if it can beso to name) unusually long - almost a quarter of an hour. Although before that he took no more than three minutes to make decisions. And only when there was a real threat to be in time trouble, the machine made a retaliatory move. The result turned out to be bleak for the human mind. The machine did not accept the victim, she won the game ...
Следующие три завершились ничьей.But the last batch of computers won in a brilliant style, leaving no man the slightest chance. In it, Deep Blue simply defeated the great grandmaster. So, mankind has learned about a new generation of electronic machines, the intellect of which surpasses the human. And which have simply amazing learning ability.
Modern cars have gone even further.Neuroscientists say that the computing power of the human brain is about one hundred and a half trillion operations per second. The volume of the conscious memory of an ordinary person is only two and a half gigabytes. And the working speed of today's supercomputers is a speed of 115 trillion. About the storage capacity, you can not spread. At the same time, they do not know fatigue, bad health, doubt, hesitation, other human weaknesses. Therefore, futurists believe that the technological singularity is inevitable.
Of course, modern biotechnology is quitecan provide humanity with means of improving natural intellectual abilities. What will lead to the appearance of such a phenomenon as the singularity of consciousness. In this case, a person risks becoming a part of the machine-human interface. And then it will be impossible to predict the further development of our civilization, based on the principles of sociology and habitual behavioral norms. The situation will simply come out of human control in the traditional sense.
