Singularity

I came across an article about singularity. And it got me thinking. One question is could this really happen. But I think a much more important question is do we even want it to happen ! Would such extremely rapid, crazy fast progress be beneficial to mankind ?

One way singularity can be reached is through biotechnology and genetic enhancements, we Humans (or our descendants) would still atleast be in charge and in control of the progress. Humans would lose their identity. Our descendants may not even be called a Homo Sapien because their gene are so different from present-day man ! And to them we will be like the Neandharthal Man was to us. But still evolution would have brought about this change to us anyways ! Science has only made the change a lot faster. Unfortunately we may become smarter and fitter, but I doubt it will make us wiser.

The other way singularity may be reached is by strong AI ! The way processing power continues to increase and the way AI has improved in the past few years, it seems that strong AI may no longer be a matter of science fiction. If intelligence just depends on just the mechanics of the brain, then given sufficiently huge processing power probably w e may be able to make a computer actually think. But having a truly thinking machine is still different than having something that is actually conscience. Creativity, intuition, ambitions, goals, desires ... these human qualities, will a machine be able to emulate them ? And what about something called soul ? If wee have one, then a machine would surely lack one ? Some questions to think about.

Bu one thing certain to me is, given a choice I would any day choose turning into a mutant over being ruled by a robot ;)