SI Glossary · Futures
Technological Singularity
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The technological singularity, often just “the singularity”, borrows a term from physics: a point beyond which our normal models break down. Applied to technology, it describes a future in which machine intelligence races so far ahead that the world on the other side is impossible for us to predict.
Key thinkers
- John von Neumann (1950s) reportedly spoke of an approaching “singularity” in the history of the race beyond which human affairs could not continue as we know them.
- Vernor Vinge, mathematician and science-fiction author, popularised the modern idea in his 1993 essay The Coming Technological Singularity, predicting superhuman intelligence within 30 years.
- Ray Kurzweil made it famous with The Singularity Is Near (2005) and The Singularity Is Nearer (2024), dating it to 2045.
How it relates to other ideas
The singularity is usually imagined as the result of an intelligence explosion that produces artificial superintelligence. In June 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman titled an essay The Gentle Singularity, arguing the transition may feel gradual from the inside.
Skepticism
Critics argue that exponential trends usually slow down, that intelligence isn’t a single dial that can be turned up indefinitely, and that physical, economic and social limits will shape progress. For current forecasts, see When will superintelligence arrive?
Written by
Luka Kušec · Editor
Editor of SI.info. Writes about Super Intelligence, technology policy and the people building frontier models.