What the Singularity Actually Means

The word singularity gets thrown around constantly right now. I don't think most of the people using it could tell you what it means.It gets used as a synonym for AGI. Also for ASI. Also for "the day AI gets really good," or "the day the robots take over," or just a vague wave at some future where things are weird.It's none of those. It has a real meaning, and the real one is better.That's it. It's a claim about us, not about the machine.Where the word comes from Most people think Kurzweil. The Singularity Is Near came out in 2005 and sold a lot of copies.He was about fifty years late.The first use I know of is from 1958. Stanislaw Ulam wrote a tribute to John von Neumann after he died, and he was remembering their conversations: One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could…