That’s interesting, they use the Singularity to refer to technological explosion in general rather than specifically AI becoming super intelligent. This seems to predate the AI usage.

>"Singularity is a time in the future. It'll occur when the rate of change of technology is very great--so great that the effort to keep up with the change will overwhelm us. People will face a whole new set of problems that we can't even imagine." A look of great tranquility smoothed the ridges around his eyes. "On the other hand, all our normal, day to day problems fade away. For example, you'll be immortal."

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layer8 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The first recorded use seems to be by Stan Ulam in 1958, who was paraphrasing John von Neumann: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19940022856/downloads/19...

“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 not continue.”

	▲	ahazred8ta 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		In the early 20th century, philosopher Pierre Teilhard De Chardin proposed that we are mentally evolving toward something transhuman and divine, but he didn't spell out a rapid transition. So the concept was sort of there, but von Neumann put it in a technological context.

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Sharlin 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yudkowsky has argued that there are three major "schools" of technological singularity: https://www.yudkowsky.net/singularity/schools