Technological "Singularity"

The IEEE Spectrum magazine has a special report this month on "The Singularity" -- a phenomenon that would begin when engineers are able to build the first computer with more intelligence than a human. According to some, this will trigger a series of cycles in which "superintelligent machines" lead to even smarter machine progeny, accelerating the process of going from generation to generation in days/weeks rather than decades/years. The report contains short articles from MIT's Rodney Brookes, economist Robin Hanson, along with an article by Vernor Vinge -- whose 1993 essay The Coming Technology Singularity launched the modern singularity movement. Closely associated with the singularity movement is the notion of a "conscious machine" -- ideas propagated by MIT's Marvin Minsky and Igor Aleksander of Imperial College. Consciousness researchers are interested in the phenomenon that happens in our cerebral cortex that turns objective information into a subjective experience -- chemical and neuronal activity (in the mouth and nose) into the taste of watermelon, for instance. The special report consists of a variety of views about whether such "conscious machines" are actually possible and could ever be built.