Are you ready for a rebooting of society?
This is something that could be likely if the technological singularity is achieved.
Obviously, this is something that is heavily debated. Led by people like Ray Kurzweil, some futurist are convinced we will be merging with our technology. This is a hard topic to dispute since we tend to be "online" all the time. Right now, the only separate is that between our phones and ourselves.
With advancements made by technology in the last couple years, it is hard to dispute the exponential nature of things. Generative AI is moving ahead rapidly, something that many are starting to awaken to. Certainly, there are a number of questions that are raised. However, many of these are outdated within a few months.
Which brings us to the topic of the singularity. What makes this different? Actually, it is a state which makes what we are dealing with right now look archaic.
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This is the state where we achieve artificial superintelligence. It is a time when the AI is moving ahead at such a pace that humans cannot keep up. That is, without being somehow connected to this.
However, this ends up looking, we are going to have to expand our thinking and question a great deal about society. Many feel the singularity will being about radical life extension, if not immortality.
One of the key factors, as theorized by those who believe in this, is that change will happen instantly. Our ability to work out problems will be so rapid, it appear instant. Again, the AI will be advancing at a pace we have yet to see in human history. This means that we, the humans, will be instantly updated.
Basically, everything becomes compressed. Something that would have taken a couple years before can be done in a few months, or even a couple days. We will be looking at massive feedback loops provided by the technology.
Of course, there are many technical limitations to overcome before this is even a remote reality. Then we get into the philosophical questions.
AGI is a precursor, according to many, of the singularity. This is a state that is hotly debated, without a clear cut definition. the general idea is that computers will be better than (most) humans at most things. Of course, "better " is a relative word and not quantified.
And herein lies one of the major problems. Since we lack the clear ability to define what it is while also lacking the tools to measure, we are likely dealing with something evident after the fact.
Another issue that I have is the idea that any of this will be a singular point in time. History, to me, seems to tell another story.
I am on record as stating that I believe the next generation LLMs (Grok3, ChatGPT5, Llama4) will start this debate a great deal. They will be so far advanced as compared to where we stand now that it means we are going to see some things that truly amaze us.
Hence, we are already in AGI since, in my mind, it is a process. There are many things that computers do better than all humans (such as calculations). However, when it comes to coding, it can top 99% of the planet. Naturally, experienced coders run circles around the models at the moment. The question is how long that will be the case.
One thing that is not debated is the potential returns. investment in this field is so great because each dollar in nets out a huge return. Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, stated that a dollar spent with his company generated $8 for the customer.
With AGI that might be 10x that amount.
A return like that will only mean more money will be invested. It is also where we can start to see the age of abundance emerging.
The world completely changed between the PRE and post-Internet days. This took a lot of years to complete, being measured in decades.
We can say the same about mobile. That transition was charted in years.
With what we are dealing with now, we are likely looking at only a couple years. If we get massively more capable models by the end of 2025, by the start of 2028, society will be much different. This is going to penetrate everything.
Keep in mind, what is being presented here is a long way from the technological singularity. Some of the most aggressive forecasts put that in the late 2040s. In spite of that, the technology we will see by the end of the decade if this unfolds will be remarkable.
It is certainly going to be a wild ride.
