Main description:

Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment offers authoritative, jargon-free essays and critical commentaries on accelerating technological progress and the notion of technological singularity. It focuses on conjectures about the intelligence explosion, transhumanism, and whole brain emulation. Recent years have seen a plethora of forecasts about the profound, disruptive impact that is likely to result from further progress in these areas. Many commentators however doubt the scientific rigor of these forecasts, rejecting them as speculative and unfounded. We therefore invited prominent computer scientists, physicists, philosophers, biologists, economists and other thinkers to assess the singularity hypotheses. Their contributions go beyond speculation, providing deep insights into the main issues and a balanced picture of the debate.

Contents:

Singularity Hypotheses: An Overview.- Part 1: A Singularity of Artificial Superintelligence.- Intelligence Explosion: Evidence and Import.- The Threat of a Reward-Driven Adversarial Artificial General Intelligence.- New Millenium Al and the Convergence of History 2012.- Why an Intelligence Explosion is Probable.- Part 2: Concerns About Artificial Superintelligence.- The Singularity and Machine Ethics.- Artificial General Intelligence and the Human Mental Model.- Some Economic Incentives Facing a Business That Might Bring About a Technological Singularity.- Rationally-shaped Artificial Intelligence.- Friendly Artificial Intelligence.- Part 3: A Singularity of Posthuman Superintelligence.- The Biointelligence Explosion.- Embracing Competitive Balance: the Case for Substrate-independent Minds and Whole brain Emulation.- Brain Versus Machine.- The Disconnection Thesis.- Part 4: Scepticism.- AAAI Presidential Panel on Long-term al Futures.- Why the Singularity Cannot Happen.- The Slowdown Hypothesis.- Software Immortals-Science or Faith?.- Belief in the Singularity is Fideistic.- A Singular Universe of Many Singularities: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context.