The Technological Singularity is near.

Yes, but as the Singularity approaches, our perception of the passage of time will slow down. From our frame of reference it will never get here.

Another way to put it is that our perception of the passage of time will remain the same, but our resolution (the time it takes for the clock to tick) will grow smaller. This will compress what feels like years (in terms of our own experience) into weeks (in terms of the number of trips the Earth makes around the Sun).

Furthermore, with the eventual heat death of the universe (tending asymptotically towards a consistent temperature), our 'clock speed' will slow down again, putting the Singularity further off again. And of course, after that, the Big Rip will end the whole thing; so we've only got another twenty billion years to figure out how to spawn off a child universe and jump into that if we really want to be immortal. Then that, in turn, will give us the time we need to jump back up the tree of universes, find the original creator, and give him/her/it a good talking to.

Wow. That's a lot of work. I think I'll start with a good nap.

I don't believe in the technological singularity, because it doesn't seem likely that technological advancement will speed up past a certain rate simply because of the inherent delays in adopting new technology. Almost certainly that rate is a good deal faster than today's rate, but still, there are logistical limits to these things, and so there will be no 'vertical asymptote'.

I think you guys have a fundamental misunderstanding about the technological singularity. It's only called a "singularity" because we don't know what will happen beyond it. The other properties of a black hole (i.e. the passage of time slowing down) do not apply.

Well then the concept is incoherent: The "technological event horizon" will always be in the future.

It's an analogy. Analogies aren't perfect.

Maybe I understand differently, but I thought "the singularity" referred to the point when computers were smarter than us or when smarter-than-us computers were available at roughly the cost of modern PCs.

Meaning, a point when we can no longer predict the future becaue it will be developed by "things" smarter than us.

I believe that the smartest beings on Earth are likely to be at least partly human for a long time.

How does "partly human" preclude what I was saying? Does having parts that are human automatically give someone all of our short-comings?

I was referring to cyborgs and the like. It's sort of silly to think about it that way anyhow, since designing most new technology requires interfacing with other technology throughout the process. Humans don't have the capacity to design a modern microchip without the aid of specialized CAD software, for example. Point being, I don't see where the singularity comes into play. Sure, as technology becomes more complex, varied and advanced, developments become tougher to predict.

I suppose developments would get mighty hard to predict if some mad scientist started a supergenius breeding program and implanting each child at birth with a cortical computer interface.

I guess I just don't buy that our creations will overtake us any time soon. I believe that human beings will be at the center of this corner of the universe's understanding of itself for a long while. Those human beings may be hooked up to all kinds of fancy auxiliary machinery in order to be so darned clever, but I don't think that makes them less human.