Technological Singularity

The technological singularity (or just singularity) is a point at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in drastic changes or extinction of a civilization like humankind.

This can be caused by a superintelligence created by artificial intelligence or humans interfacing with computers, or uploading their minds to computers. It can also be caused by molecular nanotechnology with nanobots replicating and taking over all lifeforms and structures of a planet and eventually, the entire solar system and beyond. They would achieve this with self-replication similar to the function of viruses, and it would have an exponential acceleration. Once everything has been converted, a singularity would be reached.

The singularity will allow a species to transcend the limitations of biological bodies and brains and there will eventually be no distinction between human and machine. This will be a combined effort of nanotechnology and genetic engineering.

Another effect of the singularity, if robots haven't wiped us out, is immortality. Medical advances would allow people to protect their bodies from the effects of aging, making the life expectancy limitless. It allow us to continuously repair and replace defective components in our bodies, prolonging life to an undetermined age. With somatic gene therapy, loading synthetic viruses with specific genetic information would lead to a replacement of human DNA with synthesized genes.

The Reapers periodically purged the galaxy of sapient species whose advancement would have allowed them to create singularities.

Michio Kaku writes in Physics of the Future:

"When we finally hit the fateful day when robots are smarter than us, not only will we no longer be the most intelligent being on earth, but our creations may make copies of themselves that are even smarter than they are. This army of self-replicating robots will then create endless future generations of robots, each one smarter than the previous one. Since robots can theoretically produce ever-smarter generations of robots in a very short period of time, eventually this process will explode exponentially, until they begin to devour the resources of the planet in their insatiable quest to become ever more intelligent.

''In one scenario, this ravenous appetite for ever-increasing intelligence will eventually ravage the resources of the entire planet, so the entire earth becomes a computer. Some envision these superintelligent robots then shooting out into space to continue their quest for more intelligence, until they reach other planets, stars, and galaxies in order to convert them into computers. But since the planets, stars, and galaxies are so incredibly far away, perhaps the computer may alter the laws of physics so its ravenous appetite can race faster than the speed of light to consume whole star systems and galaxies. Some even believe it might consume the entire universe, so that the universe becomes intelligent.''

''This is the “singularity” which represents a point of infinite gravity, from which nothing can escape, such as a black hole. Because light itself cannot escape, it is a horizon beyond which we cannot see."''