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Big_Foot_7911 t1_j8nyqzh wrote

Singularity defines the point in a function where it takes an infinite value, for instance when mathematically modeling a black hole.

Continued exponential growth in technology means that at some point things begin to advance and change so rapidly we have no way to estimate or assess how it impacts our lives and the world around us.

If you can describe a what a singularity will be it’s no longer a singularity.

As to why we are perusing it? Great question. I guess for that you’d have to answer why humans have perused technological progress in general. I’m guessing there are biological/evolutionary factors as well as some philosophical ones to answer it fully.

One thing I know is that you can’t stop change and it would be virtually impossible to stop human progress. Best to accept it will continue to happen until we are no more. Then it’s just a question of how to best cope and capitalize.

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wastedtime32 OP t1_j8o0su7 wrote

I’ve always understood it would happen no matter what. What scares me is how fast and how sudden it is coming. And I also think; once we become aware of a trend guided by natural forces, doesn’t our awareness of it take precedent? But people have no interest in stopping it because we’ve created a world which rewards those who abide by those set rules, even though we know what they are and have the ability to consciously subvert them.

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AsheyDS t1_j8o3oq4 wrote

Personally, I wouldn't expect everything to change all at once. The rate of change may increase some, like it always does, but we will almost certainly lag behind our technical progress. Lots of people don't want so much progress that we can't keep up with it. Others, like many of the people that post here, are miserable with the state of things as they are and can't wait until things completely change, and so you'll hear a lot of talk about hard takeoffs and exponential change... Frankly, it'll probably be somewhere around the middle. I wouldn't expect instant change, but you should be prepared for at least an increase in changes.

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dwarfarchist9001 t1_j8p0hmt wrote

>Singularity defines the point in a function where it takes an infinite value,

It doesn't need to be infinite it can also be undefined or otherwise not well-behaved. For instance the function 1/x is never infinite for any finite value of x but it has a singularity because it is undefined at x=0. Another example is the piecewise function F(x)={x^2 if x>=0 {-x^2 if x<=0 for which x=0 has a definite value of y=0 but x=0 is considered a singularity for the purposes of calculus because it is not differentiable at that point.

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Big_Foot_7911 t1_j8p1jck wrote

Excellent, thank you for the correction and additional explanation

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