What is a technological singularity?

Answer 1

If I understand what I've read of the term correctly, a technological singularity is what happens when several innovative or radical technologies come together in a way that basically *changes everything* about a civilization.

For example, James Watt was one of the people who invented the steam engine, so folks knew what pistons moving inside cylinders were for decades. Folks knew what assembly-line production was too, as it was first used on Colt firearms in the U.S. Civil War, and Leonardo DaVinci *had plans for a horseless carriage* centuries before anyone knew what a car was....

And yet it nearly took until the dawn of the 20th century for all the pieces to gel together in the right way to make cars. Once that happened, however....

BOOM! that piece of tech changed *everything*, and now we can't imagine America without cars.

Thing is, this has been the trend for innovation with us half-wit humans since the dawn of civilization...we get the pieces, sit on them for a bit, and when the time is right, *then* some genius gets them together and changes everything.

But the trend is on a non-linear, accelerating curve....meaning at some point in the near future, things will accelerate to such a point, and the developed world at least will have *so many* pieces in place that *multiple* "this changes everything" moments just might happen all at once at a rate *unprecedented* in human history.

It's hitting that point on the curve that most folks are talking about when they say "singularity". I think. :S