In the year 2000...

So, Andy Rickter is back on Conan, and though I must admit I'm sad they changed the classic year 2000 skit to boring old year 3000, I have to say I haven't had as much fun watching TV late at night since... well, since Andy was on it before. I wonder why they're not having him on the couch with guests this time around...

But, enough about the past, no matter how hilarious it was. I really have been thinking a bit about the future. Yes, the distance future... Actually, according to some, perhaps the not so distant future. Those egghead sci-fi writer's and other intellegiencia and futurists are worried (or in some cases excited) about an event that's being called "The Singularity."






Like this one:








Well, actually, not exactly like that. The singularity they are talking about in this wiki isn't a blackhole, but more of a mathematical concept. The way I break it down is, that at some point in the future, some say as soon as 25 years, we will have the ability to build a computer that is smarter than a human being. When this happens, this computer, who would not be limited to a lifespan of 80 or so years, and not be tied to a biological body (uber tricky to upgrade these things), would then be smart enough to figure at a way to make itself a lot smarter. Then, after making itself exponentially smarter, it would be smart enough to upgrade again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The main idea here is that once a computer reaches this point of being able to upgrade itself (the singularity) everything would happen real fast after that. So, like one day we're talking to the first human-level computer ("Good morning, Dave.") and the next it's wiped out the inconvenient human race (a la Terminator, or the Matrix) and acquired the god-like powers to build Dyson spheres and stuff.

So, on a scale from one to ten, how far fetched do I think this idea is? Well, there are a few sticky points. A: no one knows how long it will take before we make a computer that smart, maybe global warming or something will have wiped out civilization before we get to that point. B: (this one's a bit more esoteric) no one knows if intelligence naturally always grows exponentially or if there are intelligence plateaus and even intelligence dips just built into the universe. So, maybe the computer would get really smart at first then just sort of get to a point were it couldn't figure out any way to make itself smarter.

Still, even with those unknowns, I think that these nerds maybe on to something. Today's computers have almost mastered speech recognition, which requires about 1/100th of a person's brain power. That may not seem like much, but given that computers keep getting better at the same crazy fast pace as they have been... that doesn't leave us to much time until Hal is wishing us good morning (then throwing us out the airlock!).

So, I give this doozy of an idea a solid 5. What do you think?

(P.S. If this is my future robot master reading this, I just said 5 so I wouldn't sound insane in front of the other humans. You know humans... those cheeky monkeys! I really think it's a definite 7.)