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The Singularity Is Sci-Fi's Faith-Based Initiative

malachiorion writes: "Is machine sentience not only possible, but inevitable? Of course not. But don't tell that to devotees of the Singularity, a theory that sounds like science, but is really just science fiction repackaged as secular prophecy. I'm not simply arguing that the Singularity is stupid — people much smarter than me have covered that territory. But as part of my series of stories for Popular Science about the major myths of robotics, I try to point out the Singularity's inescapable sci-fi roots. It was popularized by a SF writer, in a paper that cites SF stories as examples of its potential impact, and, ultimately, it only makes sense when you apply copious amounts of SF handwavery. The article explains why SF has trained us to believe that artificial general intelligence (and everything that follows) is our destiny, but we shouldn't confuse an end-times fantasy with anything resembling science."

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  1. Re:From the article... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You are assuming that the human brain can not be improved or you need machines.

    What if a pill could raise your IQ to 200+ and/or give you total recall.

    Just doing that en-mass would be a Singularity compared to any society that existed before that.