The World in 2030

The World in 2030 317
Beyond ‘The Singularity’ (which is likely to occur at
some point around 2030), however, life will be very different
for wealthy people in the developed nations. It is virtually
impossible to predict what might be possible once we have
computers that are substantially cleverer than human beings
(and once they start demanding rights for themselves).
In his 2007 book ‘Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of
the Machine’, Dr. Storrs Hall makes an attempt at predicting
some of the capabilities that such an artificial intelligence (AI)
would have (an ‘epihuman’ is a machine with a capability just
above human level, a ‘hyperhuman’ is an artificial intelligence
significantly smarter than human level):
Imagine an AI that is a thousand epihuman AIs, all
tightly integrated together. Such an intellect would
be capable of substantially outstripping the human
scientific community at any given task and of
comprehending the entirety of scientific knowledge
as a unified whole. A hyperhuman AI would soon
begin to improve itself significantly faster than humans
could. It could spot the gaps in science and
engineering where there was low-hanging fruit and
instigate rapid increases in technological capability
across the board.
It is as yet poorly understood even in the scientific
community just how much headroom remains for improvement
with respect to the capabilities of current
physical technology. A mature nanotechnology, for
example, could replace the entire capital stock – all the
factories, buildings, roads, cars, trucks, airplanes, and