The singularity: a misunderstood concept

Most people associate the world „singularity“ with exponential growth: that, at some point in time in the (possibly near) future, technological progress will accelerate more and more. But this is not what the word really means. The term singularity has a clearly defined meaning in mathematics: it describes a point, where a function ceases to behave regularly or is not well defined. A typical singularity is the pole, where - to say it a bit sloppily for mathematical standards - a „division by zero“ occurs and the function value becomes „infinity“. Exponential growth therefore does not qualify as a singularity. The exponential function e^t (i.e. with time as a parameter) behaves regularly for any point in the future. This is a very important difference! Expressed in layman’s terms it is the difference between... „Crazy shit is going to happen, but we know - more or less - what’s coming“ and... „We don’t even know how to talk about the future (in terms of our current society!) - after…