The term singularity in this context refers to an event where a man or machine achieves the ability of extending their own intelligence or creating a new and better intelligence, that can in turn continue this process to eventu-ally create a super-intelligence with nearly limitless capability. Many have expected this to someday come in the form of super-intelligent thinking machines. However, there are much simpler ways to achieve this, which are now unfolding as you read this.
Apparently, the very first singularity happened in 2001, when Steve Richfield, Dr. Eliza's primary programmer, had his intelligence greatly increased as an inadvertent byproduct of an experimental cure for his idiopathic atrial fibrillation.
This singularity continued in 2005 at the Int'l Conference on Artificial Intelligence, where Eleanor Richfield first presented demo code for Dr. Eliza.
Then in 2008, Dr. Eliza was put up on the Internet for live processing of problem statements. However, Dr. Eliza's knowledge-base was still quite limited, so while Dr. Eliza is clearly on a track to greatly exceeding human problem solving skills, this will require many more months to become routine.
We fully expect Dr. Eliza to make bigger changes in the world than modern medicine or the Internet. Most people now die of conditions whose cure is known by someone, somewhere. Most wars are the result of inadequate problem solving skills on both sides. We expect Dr. Eliza to be able to efficiently deliver the solutions to these problems and much more.
We also expect Dr. Eliza to soon amass knowledge relating to the prospective construction of better and faster computers, and knowledge relating to better AI engines, to produce much better versions of Dr. Eliza in the future. Eventually, Dr. Eliza may even be able to put the pieces together to design that super-intelligent computer that people keep waiting for.
Note that it is entirely possible for other singularities to independently develop that will outrun this one. If you know of another one, then please tell us know about it.
Some people, like alcoholics, go through life chronically impaired. After a few years, they learn workarounds to their limited thinking abilities, and of-ten become seemingly brilliant, because of the greater organization of their thought processes that they have necessarily adopted just to get through life. This sometimes happens to children, when sophomoric medical procedures trash their metabolic control systems, throwing them into a perpetual sleep-ing condition. About ¼ of the general population has this or similar condi-tions, and this is particularly common among engineers and other highly ex-pert personnel. A quick screening test for this condition is to take a hot shower while taking your temperature, and see how you feel at 98.6F=37.0C. If you feel great and your temperature stays at 98.6F=37.0C long after you get out of the shower, then you do NOT have this condition. If you feel REALLY HOT or are unable to even get your temperature up that high, and it then drops like a rock when you get out of the shower, then you probably have this condition. This is commonly called Wilson’s Syndrome, but more accurately called Central Hypothermia.
Of course, removing the impairment gives you the advantage of both the im-proved thinking methods AND a fully functional brain to use them. The re-sults are a function of your skills while impaired, the age of initial impair-ment, the level of impairment, etc.
Like most people who correct their central hypothermia, Steve reports that being at his former temperatures seemed perfectly normal until he corrected it, but he now sees that it was like living on 1-2 alcoholic drinks 24/7, and that correcting it was “like waking up”.
If you also have this condition, have advanced computer skills, and are pre-pared to endure considerable discomfort to completely transform your life, then we REALLY want you to contact us at Singularity@DrEliza.com.