Stanislaw Ulam reports a discussion with von Neumann 'centered on the 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 not continue'. The first to use the concept of a 'singularity' in the technological context was John von Neumann. According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, called intelligence explosion, an upgradable intelligent agent will eventually enter a 'runaway reaction' of self-improvement cycles, each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an 'explosion' in intelligence and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that qualitatively far surpasses all human intelligence.
The technological singularity-or simply the singularity -is a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization.
