It is not uncommon for popular culture to pick up on a concept from science and twist it until it is nearly unrecognizable. The concept of the "technological singularity" is no exception. Still, when the singularity is talked about as "the machines taking over" or the point at which we all "upload our consciousness to the cloud", we have strayed so far from the term's original meaning that it is worth revisiting what the term was meant to convey.
Since humans first picked up two stones and hit them against each other to create a tool, we have worked to advance technology. An interesting thing about technology, though, is that each advance in technology typically relies on those that came before it. A blacksmith can craft all manner of useful implements, but only because they have a hammer, anvil, forge and bellows which had to have been created by someone else using technology.
But it's not just the case that each technological advance relies on those that came before it. Rather, it seems that the time needed to arrive at each new technological advance is shortened by earlier advances and that, in turn, each new advance further shortens the time to the next big leap. Charles Babbage designed what is often considered to be , a long-running web comic wherein the human characters live and interact with AI powered androids and...mostly deal with typical relationship drama and the minutiae of day-to-day life.
What I do know, what von Neumann knew, is that there is no point in fighting the coming singularity. It is not here yet, but, as all exponential curves go, it is closer now than it has ever been.
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