What is it?
Maybe a brief history of humanity’s attempt to understand and “improve” itself should serve as an introduction?
Humans have probably been attempting to modify offspring results since prehistoric times. It probably started with selection of the strongest males fertilizing females (the survival of the fittest type of theory) when strength and size were two of the features leading to greater survivability.
Abortion was another means of modifying offspring. We won’t get into the legalities of abortion here. That will be a future blog.
Spontaneous abortions have probably occurred throughout human history. Induced abortions (those performed by a doctor or other persons) were carried out in England before America was founded. These were generally thought not for the intent of improving humanity. It was more to avoid an undesirable situation.
Next comes cybernetics. Most recently developing in the 1940s, people today still have trouble defining cybernetics. Cybernetics involves the interdisciplinary study of the principles of regulation and communication — or how things work. This applies to the dynamics of mechanical or electrical systems as well as biological and social systems. The goal is, theoretically, to improve humans and humanity’s situation.
The discovery of DNA’s molecular structure in the 1950s opened up other options, but those didn’t really come into play until later.
The first known in-vitro fertilization we’ve found occurred in the late 1970s. This allowed someone to choose the characteristics of another person they thought suitable to produce desirable offspring. It could be a spouse or some different person.
In the late twentieth century and early 2000s, cloning of a variety of animals came along. This process uses a nucleus from one cell placed in another cell and implanted in a surrogate mother. Dolly, the sheep, was the first success using a mature cell.
Now we have genetic engineering, genetic modification, or genetic manipulation — all the same thing — which involve the manipulation of a biological organism’s actual genes. In this case, some DNA is either swapped out of or added to an organism’s DNA to make changes to the organism.
Many organisms have been modified in this way. You’ve probably heard of such things as GMO corn and soybeans. Studies involving human genetic changes are ongoing to treat or heal certain metabolic problems.
Humans will be able, with advancing genetic technology, to create completely new biological, genetically -invented organisms — creatures they have designed from scratch. We have already done so for small organisms. Maybe someday, humans will be able to create organisms something like themselves.
But back to the topic of The Singularity.
The basic term as primarily used today in technical circles related to humans and computers refers to that point at which computers and machines have achieved a human level of intelligence
We’ve also heard the singularity referred to as the time when humans and technology become one. This could involve chips implanted in a human brain to assist processing or adding new capabilities, for examples.
As supposedly living, thinking persons, at this point, we feel the need to ask:
What is intelligence?
Are we humans really intelligent?
Is artificial intelligence really intelligence?
Psychologists and others have been trying to define intelligence for decades. They get tangled up in words. Words are not something absolute. They can have variations in meaning, interpretation, and use. We have the same problem here.
And since we can get so tangled up in words, it gets rather complicated. We’ll postpone the rest of the discussion until next time.