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Technological Singularity



Have you seen the famous Indian Super Star Rajinikanth’s movie Robo. If you have seen am sure you remember the post interval scene where chitti creates thousands of other chittis. Ever wondered what if that was really possible and if the world is heading in that direction? Read through and get to know yourself….

These days there are a lot of articles about Artificial Super Intelligence and Robots. Boston Dynamics is one of the front runners in creating robots. Although why are they doing with such intensity is a discussion for another day but one thing to think about is will Robots ever match human intelligence?  People in this space say singularity is really achievable.

The state when Robots’ cognitive abilities surpasses human intelligence, is called Singularity and the latest news from the tech community is that singularity is as near as 2045 which means Generation Z and the late 1990s people will be surely there to watch it happen and as well play a part in achieving it. Softbank’s CEO – “Masayoshi Son” had once said in an interview that Singularity was achievable by 2019. He might have been partially correct because not 100% but 30% of singularity has already been achieved. The speed has slowed down considering the fact that Moore’s Law is very close to extinction.

[ Moore’s Law – The number of transistors placed inside an IC will double every two years. ]

But how do we know if the machine has reached the mark? In 1950 Alan Turing had published a journal on the Turing Test which is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Any machine passing the Turing Test doesn’t mean it has got the Super Intelligence but this test will probably be carried out considering its popularity [The accuracy of this test is debatable]. If you have heard of Sophia, now you would be thinking if it has passed the test. The answer is a NO.

Interestingly in recent past Boston Dynamics had released a video wherein a set of robots can jump, run, open a door, lift a box and place it elsewhere and even pull a truck. One at a time they are teaching their robots to perform all the regular activities that we do except pulling a truck though! [HAHAHA]


This is the technological part of it but practically, the human brain itself is not studied completely and the complex nature of information transfer happening inside our brain is far deeper than we could even imagine. Considering the fact that human intelligence is a sum of emotional + ethical + practical + situational intelligence it is clear at this stage that giving ethical and moral values is even bigger a problem than the other ones. Ethics and moral values cannot be learnt through a set of data and even differs from person to person.

Singularity is always a topic of debate at some point of implementation due to the complexity involved. But is it achievable? Definitely yes, and every day we are inching closer by solving 1000 problems that are ahead one at a time. But putting it in numbers would only give a false picture at this moment.

All said and done believing that it’s the post interval time of achieving singularity, now will this turn out to be a boon or bane?  Will these robots kill those who opposed their development like chitti killed Dr.Bora in the movie or will it help humans for which it was designed ? What do you think? Do let me know in the comments and stay tuned for the next article.

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