Machines designing machines will indeed be a massive change to the way phenotypes evolve. However it is already going on today—to some extent.
I expect machine intelligence won’t surpass human intelligence rapidly—but rather gradually, one faculty at a time. Memory and much calculation have already gone.
The extent to which machines design and build other machines has been gradually increasing for decades—in a process known as “automation”. That process may pick up speed, and perhaps by the time machines are doing more cognitive work than humans it might be going at a reasonable rate.
Automation takes over jobs gradually—partly because the skills needed for those jobs are not really human-level. Many cleaners and bank tellers were not using their brain to its full capacity in their work—and simple machines could do their jobs for them.
However, this bunches together the remaining human workers somewhat—likely increasing the rate at which their jobs will eventually go.
So: possibly relatively rapid and dramatic changes—but most of the ideas used to justify using the “singularity” term seem wrong. Here is some more orthodox terminology:
Machines designing machines will indeed be a massive change to the way phenotypes evolve. However it is already going on today—to some extent.
I expect machine intelligence won’t surpass human intelligence rapidly—but rather gradually, one faculty at a time. Memory and much calculation have already gone.
The extent to which machines design and build other machines has been gradually increasing for decades—in a process known as “automation”. That process may pick up speed, and perhaps by the time machines are doing more cognitive work than humans it might be going at a reasonable rate.
Automation takes over jobs gradually—partly because the skills needed for those jobs are not really human-level. Many cleaners and bank tellers were not using their brain to its full capacity in their work—and simple machines could do their jobs for them.
However, this bunches together the remaining human workers somewhat—likely increasing the rate at which their jobs will eventually go.
So: possibly relatively rapid and dramatic changes—but most of the ideas used to justify using the “singularity” term seem wrong. Here is some more orthodox terminology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Revolution
I discussed this terminology in a recent video/essay:
http://alife.co.uk/essays/engineering_revolution/