# Singularity By [Madhav Goyal](https://paragraph.com/@madhavg) · 2021-12-16 --- ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/a412513a7e782b12cfade8df40ff6a32a5802dde721f86890ba433173546302e.jpg) The biggest nightmare of a tech pessimist(and some optimists too) is Singularity. Singularity aka [**the Intelligence explosion**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity#Intelligence_explosion) is a kinda metaphor now used in a lot of sciences But in the tech world, it is described as the point when "machines" become more intelligent than Humans and work on improving themselves leaving humans in dust in terms of the ability to think and solve. It has been the singular thought of quite a lot of books but one of the best ones I have read is Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil which is kinda the inspiration for this post. The concept was first used by Marquis de Condorcet and since has been quite controversial. A lot of people have contributed to the topic and one of the most central ideas was given by I.J Good of The intelligence explosion. It stated that once an Artificial general intelligence was built it would be smart enough to make itself smarter and with the [Law of Accelerating Returns](https://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns) it would trigger an explosion of intelligence which would lead to super-human intelligent machines and once that happens there probably will be no coming back. This leads to more emphasis on safe AGI and doom-like scenarios. As I am an optimist I will try to put up my view of a technological singularity. John Von Neumann is regarded as one of the most intelligent people who have ever lived. He made some of the most fundamental contributions to Game theory, computers, and Mathematics. Just think about the number of possibilities it would bring if we could make a hundred minds like those, they don't even need to be super-human intelligent at first. Electrical circuits are a million times faster than Human neurons which leads to thinking that a machine if started to think would be able to learn and think about a million times faster. If this comes out to be true, then a sufficiently general intelligence could be more intelligent than the whole of Humanity combined in just a matter of months if not years. This opens up a world of speculation where we could be able to answer some of the most intricate and basic questions which drive us as Humans. Mathematical conjectures to quantum physics, Political models to climate change won't be big deal for a consciousness more intelligent than the Human civilization combined. We won't have to go ourselves to settle on new planets, the AI could look out for other living beings and would first terraform planets for Human habitation or set up outposts. [Von Neumann probes](https://madhavgoyal.substack.com/p/the-easiestmaybe-way-to-conquer-space) would not just be talked about but built and sent out to venture into the space Even though there's not a due date of intelligence emergence in our computers still the path which we took towards building AGI has led us a long way from helping us predict [protein folding](https://deepmind.com/blog/article/putting-the-power-of-alphafold-into-the-worlds-hands) to making [better weather models for the future](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/06/22/weather-forecasters-supercomputers/). Till now I have talked about how singularity could transform the society at large but didn't touch on the topic of Human-robot interaction which could be one of the most complex aspects of a singularity. One thought that comes to mind of robot companions is from the movie **HER** which still is a movie like every other and doesn't fully grasp the true essence of the matter. I don't know much about it and haven't even thought of it as much I should have which kind of inspires me to think of a future where "artificial" and "natural intelligence" live in harmony propelling each other towards prosperity and a better future. PS: I am grateful to your dear reader again for spending time with my thoughts and the stuff I write. You are the reason I still write stuff. This topic Is the one I think of most often. If you want me to keep reading cool blogposts from me think of [buying me a book cause that’s the place where I get most of my ideas](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/madhavgoyal) [https://www.buymeacoffee.com/madhavgoyal](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/madhavgoyal) and will drop my eth address for fun 0x5c0265DCFBeeA7A363098483fE4910052D4DD668. Thank you again. [crowdfund://0x5c0265DCFBeeA7A363098483fE4910052D4DD668?features=](https://etherscan.io/address/0x5c0265DCFBeeA7A363098483fE4910052D4DD668) --- *Originally published on [Madhav Goyal](https://paragraph.com/@madhavg/singularity)*