Ways the singularity could fail to happen
Dashing off a quick post with some half-formed thoughts just to see what people think. When I refer to the singularity here, I mean it in the intelligence explosion sense. I'm trying to categorize the different ways the singularity could fail to happen, here are the categories I've come up with so far:
- Human minds might be fundamentally different to other physical things, and not subject to thinking about like an engineer
- The idea of one mind being greatly more efficient than another might not be meaningful
- Human minds might be within a few orders of magnitude of the most efficient minds possible in principle in our Universe
- ... as above in our corner of the Universe
- ... as above given the height of our physical knowledge
- ... as above given the limitations of the height of our manufacturing ability
- ... as above given the limitations of the height of our design ability
- We might not continue to study the problem, or the relevant fields necessary
- We might hit an existential risk before reaching the heights of our potential
- We might have the ability to build superintelligent minds, but choose not to do so
- We might build superintelligent minds and it not make a great difference to the world
What have I missed out?
EDITED TO ADD 15:20: just added "The idea of one mind being greatly more efficient than another might not be meaningful", which is a popular one.
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