the singularity

What does the singularity mean?

The singularity refers to a hypothetical point at which human intelligence is surpassed by artificial intelligence, to such an extent that it is impossible to reverse or contain. Both the singularity and the Singularity are commonly used, and it is occasionally found without the.

Examples of the singularity

And that’s what I’m meaning by the singularity is that, and what many science fiction writers have written about that, is that it’s describing the era that we will be in and around when the advent of AGI happens. 
—Demis Hassabis, quoted in Insights by Stanford Business, 18 June 2026

In Nate Kenyon’s new thriller Manhattan is at the epicentre of a digital meltdown when a renegade tech wizard unleashes the Singularity, which turns out to be a lot less fun than anyone supposed.
—Toronto Star, 24 Nov. 2013

The “singularity” that tech evangelists talk about – the eventual symbiosis of man and machine – would really be the “second singularity”, Runciman argues, persuasively. The first came with the age of Enlightenment, with our ability to “imagine what it would be like to organise collective enterprises as though they had the durability of machines”.
—The Observer (London, Eng.), 10 Sept. 2023

Where does the singularity come from?

The word singularity has been in English since the 14th century (to refer to something that is singular), and has long had applications in technical fields such as math and physics; the sense referring to AI overtaking human capability is fairly recent, only in use since the late 20th century. Author and academic Vernor Venge is thought to be the first to use the singularity in this precise manner (in the early 1980s); its use was further popularized by Ray Kurzweil, with his 2005 book The Singularity is Near.

How is the singularity used?

The singularity is still viewed as a hypothetical point, and so it is used without any significant degree of consensus as to what it will entail, or even whether it will happen.