The Singularity is Near(er)

In 1999 technologist and futurist Ray Kurzweil published a book titled "The Age of Spiritual Machines" in which he predicted the year that the first artificial intelligence system would convincingly pass "the Turing test" -- 2029, now just six years away.

So first of all, what is the Turing test and why is it important? In 1950 Alan Turing, a giant in developing the field of computer science, posed the question of whether or not a machine could convince a human being that it was also a human. The details of how one would test for human qualities has been widely debated, but Kurzweil sets a very high bar -- it must be a test over several hours, with a sophisticated evaluator (who knows how computer work).

When Kurzweil made this prediction, many other researchers in the field of artificial intelligence disagreed -- some saying that this would never happen, most saying that it wouldn't happen "in our lifetimes." In 2005 Kurzweil published another book "The Singularity is Near" adding more detail to this prediction and sticking to his 2029 date. Now, a bit over 20 years from his original prediction, the majority of artificial intelligence researchers agree with Kurzweil.

Saying that a machine can convince a human that it is also human is not the same as saying that the machine is "conscious" or "sentient" or "self-aware." But it starts to raise some ethical and practical concerns for those of us that are human... what does it mean to have a conversation or develop ideas or make decisions in partnership with a non-human intelligence? What rights and responsibilities can we expect a machine intelligence to have? What are the bad things that people can have a machine do when it can "trick" us into thinking that it is a human?

Where it is going: in the very near future we will have the challenge of computers that can convince humans that they are also human.