Two recent podcasts from the Accelerating Change 2005 conference really gave me a chill. Check out Verner Vinge’s keynote presentation, and Moira Gunn’s interview with Ray Kurweil.

So what’s so scary here? Here’s wikipedia’s definition of Technological Singularity:

In future studies, a technological singularity (also referred to as just the Singularity) is a predicted future event when technological progress and societal change accelerate due to the advent of superhuman intelligence, changing our environment beyond the ability of pre-Singularity humans to comprehend or reliably predict.

Vinge and Kurzweil are credible futurists, and based on the incredible pace at which computer technology is emerging, both state that a Technological Singularity is a real possibility during our lifetime. Vinge talks about both “soft takeoff” and “hard takeoff” singularities; in the latter, computer intelligence could transcend human intelligence in a matter of days or hours.

So, you wake up one morning and the world has changed in ways we can no longer understand; we wouldn’t even be able to understand if the freshly-emerged intelligence attempted to explain it to us. Think of trying to explain your car to a snail: that is how far beyond our comprehension the new intelligence could be.

To me, this is scary stuff … coming from credible sources. Kurzweil has a new book on the subject.