Be aware: Singularity is near

By Daniel Shin

Artificial intelligence will exceed human intelligence. Elon Musk once said that AI would grow vastly smarter than humans. Musk pointed out that AI would overtake the human race by 2025. In contrast, some experts say the rise of artificial intelligence will make most of us better off, not replace us, or make us go extinct.

The singularity is a conceptual and meta-physical term. When it comes to technological jargon, the singularity is often described as a point in time when innovation reaches critical mass. At critical mass, new innovation must be widely adopted. Technological growth explodes and shall be kept self-sustained at the singularity.

This implication, of reaching the singularity, is sometimes articulated as a negative. For example, some say that technological growth becomes so great at the singularity to the extent that technologies become uncontrollable and irreversible. AI would have many positive impacts, but it could also result in unforeseeable negative changes to the human race.

We have to cope with AI. There is fear, uncertainty, and mixed feelings. AI, robots, and other innovations may put millions of us out of work in a few years. If we adapt well and if highly intelligent systems are well within the scope of our purposes, the future could be promising. In fact, it may allow us to focus more on what we are truly good at.

Raymond Kurzweil is one of living legends. He has had many great inventions. He also started an alternative education institute called Singularity University in 2008 along with Peter H. Diamandis, a founder of X Prize Foundation. Singularity University aims to educate, empower, and inspire leaders to leverage exponential technologies to solve humanity's grand challenges. The two co-founders believed that exponential technological advancement could give anyone anywhere the ability to create a positive impact.

Raymond Kurzweil argues that the technological advancement in medicine such as gene therapy and bio-informatics will help humans to continuously repair and replace defective components in their bodies and prolong life. Medical advancement would allow people to protect their bodies from the effects of aging and make life expectancy much longer.

The singularity comes with an important notion, of self-directed learning as well as a self-sustainable quality. Superhuman intelligence is about to be invented through the amplification of collective human intelligence and the power of artificial intelligence. Superhuman intelligence is a good thing as it would bring many positive outcomes. Superhuman intelligence powered by AI would help humans solve complex problems and help our inventive skills and creative souls to become more effective.

At the singularity, AI may have fundamentally different cognitive qualities and abilities than biological human intelligence. There are things that humans can do, but AI can't. AI will be more capable, but still, there are things that AI can't easily copy such as making moral decisions or inventing something autonomously.

The idea of creating human-like technology has a long history. This idea emerged during and after World War II when scientists like Alan Turing, a British mathematician, discovered that machines could become more than just computing systems. The Turing Test is one of the most important philosophical cornerstones of artificial intelligence and modern computation.

During wartime, technology created by mathematicians and scientists like Alan Turing helped to break Nazi's codes that were regarded unbreakable with human computation skills. It was unfortunate to lose one of the most innovative thinkers in the 20th century from accidental poisoning. His sexual orientation, meant that, at the time, he was violating the law. This put an immense amount of strain and stress on him and unfortunately, also resulted in a criminal charge.

Turing's story inspired many people to pursue their careers in artificial intelligence, make movies like the "Imitation Game," and establish the Alan Turing Institute, one of largest national institutes for data science and artificial intelligence in the United Kingdom. It is a joint venture with leading universities including Oxford and Cambridge with an initial ￡600 million investment. The specific role of the Institute is to provide expertise and fundamental research into data science and artificial intelligence that is needed to solve complex real-world problems.

Perhaps, true artificial intelligence doesn't exist yet. The word, the singularity, doesn't stick to one specific meaning, either. Scientists have laid down principles that have molded the historical record of the relationship between humans and the machines to solve the problems. It may all depend on the context. But, the singularity describes a future where technological growth is reaching new levels of massive advancement at one point.

Now, the notion of the singularity leaves the question of whether we can control it or what not. Will we ever control the world with our minds or can we even take control of our future? Perhaps not. However, the consequences of the singularity and its potential benefit or harm to humans have been vastly debated. Many tech companies like Google throw their weight behind a new school like the Singularity University or the Alan Turing Institute. That will help forerunners prepare for a future when machines become smarter than humans. We just don't know when, but it will surely come.

The singularity is near. In a few years, AI will help significantly speed up complex decision-making and make people more productive. AI will make humans smarter and more efficient. The singularity at the core may not be the ultimate no man's land. Many researchers would agree that current forms of AI cannot have their own emotions, but they could mimic it. Hence, human Intelligence should also relate to adaptive learning and experiences like machines do. There are many qualities in humans that AI cannot easily replace at any point in time, though.

One of the most important prerequisites for the singularity is education. We shall invest in education to train people for a new future. MIT alone in recent years invested $1 billion into a new school devoted to AI. Tech leaders spend nearly $20 billion on AI annually. There is no downturn in sight. If we understand what AI is capable of and understand this domain well, we can start to make further observations of what AI can truly do, not just fear it. More precisely, we must lead it.

Daniel Shin is a venture capitalist and senior luxury fashion executive, overseeing corporate development at MCM, a German luxury brand. He also teaches at Korea University.