"The Singularity" is a phrase borrowed from the astrophysics of black holes. The phrase has varied meanings; as used by Vernor Vinge and Raymond Kurzweil, it refers to the idea that accelerating technology will lead to superhuman machine intelligence that will soon exceed human intelligence, probably by the year 2030. The results on the other side of the "event horizon," they say, are unpredictable. We'll try anyway.

Openness and the Metaverse Singularity By Jamais Cascio
The four worlds of the Metaverse Roadmap could also represent four pathways to a Singularity. But they also represent potential dangers. An "open-access Singularity" may be the answer. The people who have embraced the possibility of a singularity should be working at least as hard on making possible a global inclusion of interests as they do on making the singularity itself happen, says Jamais Cascio. (Added November 7th 2007)

What If the Singularity Does NOT Happen? By Vernor Vinge
It's 2045 and nerds in old-folks homes are wandering around, scratching their heads, and asking plaintively, "But ... but, where's the Singularity?" Science fiction writer Vernor Vinge--who originated the concept of the technological Singularity--doesn't think that will happen, but he explores three alternate scenarios, along with our "best hope for long-term survival"--self-sufficient, off-Earth settlements. (Added March 14th 2007)

Foreword to The Intelligent Universe By Ray Kurzweil
The explosive nature of exponential growth means it may only take a quarter of a millennium to go from sending messages on horseback to saturating the matter and energy in our solar system with sublimely intelligent processes. The ongoing expansion of our future superintelligence will then require moving out into the rest of the universe, where we may engineer new universes. A new book by James Gardner tells that story. (Added February 2nd 2007)

It Takes a Giant Cosmos to Create Life and Mind By James N. Gardner
A new book, The Intelligent Universe, proposes that the universe might end in intelligent life, one that has acquired the capacity to shape the cosmos as a whole. (Added February 2nd 2007)

Response to 'The Singularity Is Always Near' By Ray Kurzweil
In "The Singularity Is Always Near," an essay in The Technium, an online "book in progress," author Kevin Kelly critiques arguments on exponential growth made in Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity Is Near. Kurzweil responds. (Added May 4th 2006)

Singularities and Nightmares By David Brin
Options for a coming singularity include self-destruction of civilization, a positive singularity, a negative singularity (machines take over), and retreat into tradition. Our urgent goal: find (and avoid) failure modes, using anticipation (thought experiments) and resiliency -- establishing robust systems that can deal with almost any problem as it arises. (Added March 28th 2006)

The Physical Constants as Biosignature By James N. Gardner
Two recent discoveries have imparted a renewed sense of urgency to investigations of the anthropic qualities of our cosmos: the value of dark energy density is exceedingly small but not quite zero; and the number of different solutions permitted by M-theory is, in Susskind's words, "astronomical, measured not in millions or billions but in googles or googleplexes." (Added February 28th 2006)

Sander Olson Interviews Ray Kurzweil By Sander Olson and Ray Kurzweil
Nonbiological intelligence is multiplying by over 1,000 per decade. Once we can achieve the software of intelligence, which we will achieve through reverse-engineering the human brain, non-biological intelligence will soar past biological intelligence. By the 2040s, nonbiological intelligence will be a billion times more powerful than the 10^26 computations per second that all biological humanity represents. (Added February 10th 2006)

Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution By James N. Gardner
Why is the universe life-friendly? Columbia physicist Brian Greene says it's the deepest question in all of science. Cosmologist Paul Davies agrees, calling it the biggest of the Big Questions. (Added February 9th 2006)

Runaway Artificial Intelligence? By J. Storrs Hall
Synthetic computer-based artificial intelligence will become available well before nanotechnology makes neuron-level brain scans possible in the 2020s -- it's already a short step to computer systems that make better decisions than corporate managers do, says J. Storrs Hall. (Added February 3rd 2006)

Technology and Human Enhancement By John Smart
Machines are increasingly exceeding us in the performance of more and more tasks, from guiding objects like missiles or satellites to assembling other machines. They are merging with us ever more intimately and are learning how to reconfigure our biology in new and significantly faster technological domains. (Added February 3rd 2006)

Reinventing Humanity By Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil sees a radical evolution of the human species in the next 40 years. The merger of man and machine, coupled with the sudden explosion in machine intelligence and rapid innovation in gene research and nanotechnology, will result in a world where there is no distinction between the biological and the mechanical, or between physical and virtual reality. (Added February 3rd 2006)

We Are the Web By Kevin Kelly
The planet-sized "Web" computer is already more complex than a human brain and has surpassed the 20-petahertz threshold for potential intelligence as calculated by Ray Kurzweil. In 10 years, it will be ubiquitous. So will superintelligence emerge on the Web, not a supercomputer? (Added January 19th 2006)

Ubiquity Interviews Ray Kurzweil By Ray Kurzweil
"If it were up to the Luddites, human life expectancy would still be 37, and we'd still be dying from bacterial infections," says Ray Kurzweil in this wide-ranging interview. The anti-technology movement "is fundamentally misguided, because it fails to appreciate the profound benefits technology has brought." (Added January 18th 2006)

I am the very model of a Singularitarian By KurzweilAI.net
Charlie Kam has written and recorded a humorous Singularitarian version of Gilbert & Sullivan's "I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major General," from the Gilbert & Sullivan opera, "The Pirates of Penzance." (Added January 17th 2006)

Thought Experiments: When the Singularity Is More than a Literary Device By Cory Doctorow
Is the Singularity a spiritual or a technological belief system? Perhaps it is the melding of both, says science fiction author Cory Doctorow in this dialogue with Ray Kurzweil. "After all, this is a system of belief that dictates a means by which we can care for our bodies virtuously and live long enough to transcend them. It's no wonder that the Singularity has come to occupy so much of the science fiction narrative in these years. Science or spirituality, you could hardly ask for a subject better tailored to technological speculation and drama." (Added January 16th 2006)

Kurzweil’s Law (aka “the law of accelerating returns”) By Ray Kurzweil
In an evolutionary process, positive feedback increases order exponentially. A correlate is that the "returns" of an evolutionary process (such as the speed, cost-effectiveness, or overall "power" of a process) increase exponentially over time -- both for biology and technology. Ray Kurzweil submitted on essay based on that premise to Edge.org in response to John Brockman's question: "What's your law?" (Added January 12th 2004)

The technology of universal intelligence By Ray Kurzweil
Levels of intelligence far greater than our own are going to evolve within this century. We will ultimately saturate all of the matter and energy in our area of the universe with our intelligence. (Added October 16th 2003)

Exponential Growth an Illusion?: Response to Ilkka Tuomi By Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil responds to Ilkka Tuomi's essays, "The Lives and Death of Moore's Law" and "Kurzweil, Moore, and Accelerating Change," in which Tuomi challenges Kurzweil's "law of accelerating returns" and the exponential growth of semiconductor technology. (Added September 13th 2003)

Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life is the Architect of the Universe By James N. Gardner
James N. Gardner's Selfish Biocosm hypothesis proposes that the remarkable anthropic (life-friendly) qualities that our universe exhibits can be explained as incidental consequences of a cosmic replication cycle in which a cosmologically extended biosphere provides a means for the cosmos to produce one or more baby universes. The cosmos is "selfish" in the same sense that Richard Dawkins proposed that genes are focused on their own replication. (Added August 26th 2003)

Parallel universes, the Matrix, and superintelligence By Michio Kaku
Physicists are converging on a "theory of everything," probing the 11th dimension, developing computers for the next generation of robots, and speculating about civilizations millions of years ahead of ours, says Dr. Michio Kaku, author of the best-sellers Hyperspace and Visions and co-founder of String Field Theory, in this interview by KurzweilAI.net Editor Amara D. Angelica. (Added June 27th 2003)

Exploring the 'Singularity' By James John Bell
The point in time when current trends may go wildly off the charts--known as the "Singularity"--is now getting serious attention. What it suggests is that technological change will soon become so rapid that we cannot possibly envision its results. (Added June 6th 2003)

Understanding the Accelerating Rate of Change By Ray Kurzweil and Chris Meyer
We're entering an age of acceleration. The models underlying society at every level, which are largely based on a linear model of change, are going to have to be redefined. Because of the explosive power of exponential growth, the 21st century will be equivalent to 20,000 years of progress at today's rate of progress; organizations have to be able to redefine themselves at a faster and faster pace. (Added May 2nd 2003)

Top KurzweilAI.net News of 2002 By Ray Kurzweil and Amara D. Angelica
In its second year of operation, 2002, KurzweilAI.net continued to chronicle the most notable news stories on accelerating intelligence. We offer here our overview of the dramatic progress that the past year has brought. Following that, we selected just over half of the 823 news stories posted in 2002 to document key breakthroughs in the continued exponential growth of increasingly diverse information-based technologies; deepening understanding of the information basis of biological processes; the early contributions of nanotechnology, and a multiplicity of related topics. (Added February 6th 2003)

A Simple Model of Unbounded Evolutionary Versatility as a Largest-Scale Trend in Organismal Evolution By Peter D. Turney
The idea that there are large-scale trends in the evolution of biological organisms, such as increasing complexity, is highly controversial. But Peter Turney presents a simple computational model showing that local adaptation to a dynamic, randomly changing environment results in a global trend towards increasing evolutionary versatility, which implies an accelerating evolutionary pace, and that this trend can continue without bound if there is sufficient ongoing change in the environment. (Added June 25th 2002)

Singularity Chat with Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil By Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil
Vernor Vinge (screen name "vv") and Ray Kurzweil (screen name "RayKurzweil") recently discussed The Singularity -- their idea that superhuman machine intelligence will soon exceed human intelligence -- in an online chat room co-produced by Analog Science Fiction and Fact and Asimov's Science Fiction magazine on SCIFI.COM. Vinge, a noted science fiction writer, is the author of the seminal paper, "The Technological Singularity." Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near book is due out in early 2003 and is previewed in "The Law of Accelerating Returns." (Note: typos corrected and comments aggregated for readability.) (Added June 13th 2002)

After the Singularity: A Talk with Ray Kurzweil By Ray Kurzweil
John Brockman, editor of Edge.org, recently interviewed Ray Kurzweil on the Singularity and its ramifications. According to Ray, "We are entering a new era. I call it 'the Singularity.' It's a merger between human intelligence and machine intelligence that is going to create something bigger than itself. It's the cutting edge of evolution on our planet. One can make a strong case that it's actually the cutting edge of the evolution of intelligence in general, because there's no indication that it's occurred anywhere else. To me that is what human civilization is all about. It is part of our destiny and part of the destiny of evolution to continue to progress ever faster, and to grow the power of intelligence exponentially. To contemplate stopping that--to think human beings are fine the way they are--is a misplaced fond remembrance of what human beings used to be. What human beings are is a species that has undergone a cultural and technological evolution, and it's the nature of evolution that it accelerates, and that its powers grow exponentially, and that's what we're talking about. The next stage of this will be to amplify our own intellectual powers with the results of our technology." (Added March 27th 2002)

Accelerating Intelligence: Where Will Technology Lead Us? By Ray Kurzweil
Kurzweil gave a Special Address at BusinessWeek's The Digital Economy New Priorities: Building A Collaborative Enterprise In Uncertain Times conference on December 6, 2001 in San Francisco. He introduced business CEOs to the Singularity -- the moment when distinctions between human and machine intelligence disappear. (Added March 26th 2002)

Max More and Ray Kurzweil on the Singularity By Max More and Ray Kurzweil
As technology accelerates over the next few decades and machines achieve superintelligence, we will encounter a dramatic phase transition: the "Singularity." Will it be a "wall" (a barrier as conceptually impenetrable as the event horizon of a black hole in space), an "AI-Singularity" ruled by super-intelligent AIs, or a gentler "surge" into a posthuman era of agelessness and super-intelligence? Will this meme be hijacked by religious "passive singularitarians" obsessed with a future rapture? Ray Kurzweil and Extropy Institute president Max More debate. (Added February 26th 2002)

Top KurzweilAI.net News of 2001 By Ray Kurzweil and Amara D. Angelica
In its first year of operation, KurzweilAI.net has chronicled the notable news stories on accelerating intelligence. We've selected here the most important of those stories to document the key breakthroughs for 2001 in continued exponential growth of computation, communication, and other information-based technologies; comparable acceleration in efforts to reverse-engineer the human brain and other sources of the templates of intelligence; similar growth in our understanding of the information basis of biological processes; and the contributions of nanotechnology. (Added January 21st 2002)

What is time, and what is the right language to describe change, in a closed system like the universe, which contains all of its observers? By Lee Smolin
Since the observers are inside the universe itself, we must formulate a "background-independent" quantum theory of gravity and cosmology , as well as the notions of time and change, to apply to a system with no fixed background, which contains all its possible observers--perhaps even one in which the laws themselves evolve as the universe does. Lee Smolin responds to Edge publisher/editor John Brockman's request to futurists to pose "hard-edge" questions that "render visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefine who and what we are." (Added January 21st 2002)

Is the universe a quantum computer? By Seth Lloyd
The 5th Annual Edge Question reflects the spirit of the Edge motto: "To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves." Seth Lloyd asks: Is the universe a quantum computer? (Added January 21st 2002)

Kurzweil's Law By Paul Boutin
Change is accelerating. And so is the acceleration. Say good-bye to the future as we know it. (Added November 6th 2001)

From Here to There By New Scientist
In Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near, physicist Sir Roger Penrose is paraphrased as suggesting it is impossible to perfectly replicate a set of quantum states, so therefore perfect downloading (i.e., creating a digital or synthetic replica of the human brain based upon quantum states) is impossible. But how perfect does this copy need to be? This New Scientist article approaches the question of replication of quantum states from a similar perspective--that of quantum teleportation. And how is this complicated by the infinite possible universes that exist--or don't--based on possible quantum states? (Added August 7th 2001)

Taming the Multiverse By New Scientist
In Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near, physicist Sir Roger Penrose is paraphrased as suggesting it is impossible to perfectly replicate a set of quantum states, so therefore perfect downloading (i.e., creating a digital or synthetic replica of the human brain based upon quantum states) is impossible. What would be required to make it possible? A solution to the problem of quantum teleportation, perhaps. But there is a further complication: the multiverse. Do we live in a world of schizophrenic tables? Does free will negate the possibility of perfect replication? (Added August 7th 2001)

The Singularity Is Near - Ray Kurzweil at Extro5 (Video) By Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil presents his law of accelerating returns at EXTRO-5. (Added July 30th 2001)

Excerpts from The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed By Rapidly Advancing Technologies By Damien Broderick
Damien Broderick takes us to the edge of a technological Singularity, where the Internet reaches critical mass of interconnectivity and "wakes up," and mountain ranges may mysteriously appear out of nowhere. Then again, is the rampant techno-optimism surrounding the imminent Singularity just exponential bogosity? (Added July 26th 2001)

The coming superintelligence: who will be in control? By Amara D. Angelica
At some point in the next several decades, as machines become smarter than people, they'll take over the world. Or not. What if humans get augmented with smart biochips, wearables, and other enhancements, accessing massive knowledge bases ubiquitously and becoming supersmart cyborgs who stay in control by keeping machines specialized? Or what if people and machines converge into a mass-mind superintelligence? (Added July 25th 2001)

Is A Singularity Just Around The Corner? By Robin Hanson
Robin Hanson explores the economics of the Singularity. (Added June 4th 2001)

Surfing The Singularity: Damien Broderick By Amara D. Angelica
In The Spike (Forge, 2001), Damien Broderick takes us on a wild, hyperkinetic ride through some of the planet's most imaginative ideas on the accelerating times ahead. (Added May 18th 2001)

Tearing Toward the Spike By Damien Broderick
We will live forever; or we will all perish most horribly; our minds will emigrate to cyberspace, and start the most ferocious overpopulation race ever seen on the planet; or our machines will transcend and take us with them, or leave us in some peaceful backwater where the meek shall inherit the Earth. Or something else, something far weirder and... unimaginable. (Added May 7th 2001)

What is Friendly AI? By Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
How will near-human and smarter-than-human AIs act toward humans? Why? Are their motivations dependent on our design? If so, which cognitive architectures, design features, and cognitive content should be implemented? At which stage of development? These are questions that must be addressed as we approach the Singularity. (Added May 3rd 2001)

Singularity Math Trialogue By Ray Kurzweil, Vernor Vinge, and Hans Moravec
Hans Moravec, Vernor Vinge, and Ray Kurzweil discuss the mathematics of the Singularity, making various assumptions about growth of knowledge vs. computational power. (Added March 28th 2001)

The Law of Accelerating Returns By Ray Kurzweil
An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense "intuitive linear" view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century -- it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). The "returns," such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light. (Added March 7th 2001)

What is the Singularity? By John Smart
This introduction to the Singularity includes a brief history of the idea and links to key Web resources. (Added February 27th 2001)

The Technological Singularity By Vernor Vinge
This is the article that introduced the idea of The Singularity. The original version of this article was presented at the VISION-21 Symposium sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, March 30-31, 1993. A slightly changed version appeared in the Winter 1993 issue of Whole Earth Review. (Added February 22nd 2001)