The World in 2030

The World in 2030 89
The Singularity
In the summer term of 1965, I persuaded my sixth form
school colleagues (16-18 year olds) that we should hold
a debate on the topic, ‘Man Will Transfer His Mind To
Machines.’ I was the main proposer and supporter of the
motion which I duly lost comprehensively.
Now, over forty years later, we can contemplate a time
when it will be necessary for us not only to consider the moral
and ethical issues of transferring a human mind to a machine
but to consider how we should respond when machine
intelligence becomes more capable than human intelligence.
This section of my report on the likely shape of the
world in 2030 is likely to be the most controversial and, for
many readers, will seem the most far-fetched, as it describes
a period in which machines become as clever as humans and
in which humans will enhance their own biology to rival the
machines they are building. The period immediately after
the point at which machine intelligence exceeds human
capabilities is becoming known as ‘The Singularity’.
‘The Singularity’ 177 is a phrase adopted by futurists,
futurologists and computer scientists to describe the time
when human intelligence is no longer the dominant form of
intelligence on Earth. Usually we lack appropriate language
for the technological future but, in this instance, I think
the term ‘singularity’ is appropriate, even if it is somewhat
opaque. In astronomy a ‘singularity’ is an event horizon
beyond which nothing can be seen. The coming singularity