The “Singularity” is the point in time when humans transcend biology.
According to Ray Kurzweil, a futurist with a 30+ year record of accurate predictions; the “Singularity” will happen in 2045. I鈥檒l only be 94 y/o 馃檪 While waiting for the inevitable, below are some things that interest and maybe frighten me a little.
Social Media
We did not understand the impact of social media on society until significant damage had already been done. Don’t believe me? According to a leaked 2018 internal report, Facebook admits that their 鈥渁lgorithms promote content that sparks outrage, hate, and amplifies biases within the data that we feed them.” If you are interested in learning more, check out this website.
Artificial Intelligence
… the next big thing, is already here 馃檪 It is fun, entertaining (see below) and will be transformational.聽 It will also have the ability to do extreme damage. That is why for several years I have been following (and supporting) groups that are trying to understand and prepare for the widespread use of this technology:
- Future of Life Institute: “The mission of the Future of Life Institute, established in 2015, is to steer transformative technology towards benefitting life and away from extreme large-scale risks.”
- Center for Humane Technology: “Our mission is to shift technology towards a more humane future that supports our well-being, democratic functioning, and shared information environment.”
Enough “doom & gloom”… now for the cool stuff 馃檪聽 Several AI applications have been opened up to the public in that last couple of months. I’ve been experimenting with some them.
OpenAI is a R&D company dedicated to developing artificial intelligence systems that are smarter than humans to benefit humanity. Two of their products that are available to check out for free, once you have created an account are:
- GPT-4 (replaces ChatGPT): This is an artificial intelligence chatbot. I created several of the posts below using ChatGPT for the text and DALL路E 2 for the images.
- DALL路E 2 is an artificial intelligence application that can create realistic images from a user-supplied text description.
Stable Diffusion is another AI image creation tool. It uses a a class of machine learning that can generate new data based on training data. The results (see below) are impressive! You can check it out for yourself here. No account necessary.
Midjourney’s generative AI program creates high resolution images from “prompts”. Check out some examples here.
ChatGPT, DALL路E, Stable Diffusion & Midjourney examples…
MidjourneyMidjourney is another generative AI program that generates images from “prompts”. Check out some examples below that were created by Noah Maranto. 
Stable Diffusion images…The images below were created in the Stable Diffusion Playground text to image modeling, using the following text inputs: a unicorn travelling through space around the planet Saturn a fierce dragon close up a large mansion on top of a sunny mountain in the style of Dreamworks animation Pok茅mon walking in a forest scenes from […] 
Explain string theory.ChatGPT response… String theory is a theoretical framework that attempts to reconcile two seemingly incompatible theories of physics, namely quantum mechanics and general relativity. It suggests that the fundamental building blocks of the universe are not particles, but tiny one-dimensional objects called strings. These strings vibrate at different frequencies, and each frequency corresponds to a […] 
Explain how time travel is possible.ChatGPT response… The concept of time travel has been a popular topic in science fiction for many years, but is it actually possible in reality? While the idea of traveling backwards or forwards in time remains theoretical, there are several scientific concepts that suggest it may be possible. One theory that could allow for time […] 
What does it mean when AI hallucinates?ChatGPT response… AI hallucination is a phenomenon in which an AI system generates outputs that are factually incorrect or unrelated to the given context. These outputs often emerge from the AI model’s inherent biases, lack of real-world understanding, or training data limitations. In one example, a ChatGPT chatbot was trained on a dataset of text […] 
Explain the difference between machine learning and AI.ChatGPT response… Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. AI is a broad term that refers to the ability of machines to mimic human thought and behavior. ML is a subset of AI that uses statistical techniques to give computer systems the ability to […] 
When will humanity vanish?ChatGPT response… It is impossible to predict with certainty when humanity will vanish, as there are many factors that could contribute to our eventual demise. However, there are a few scenarios that could lead to the extinction of humanity: Natural disasters: Events such as asteroid impacts, supervolcanic eruptions, or solar flares could cause widespread destruction […] 
Explain the singularity.ChatGPT response… The singularity is a hypothetical point in the future at which artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies become so advanced and pervasive that they fundamentally transform society and the human experience. The concept of the singularity was first popularized by mathematician and computer scientist Vernor Vinge in a 1993 essay, in which […] |