SINGULARITY
STANDING ON THE BRINK OF THE SINGULARITY REVOLUTION
Singularity represents an era where humankind and machines collide to become one civilisation, but what will it mean for us, asks Rudie Raath, Digital Technology Strategist at Datacentrix.
T he Enfield Council in North London recently hired a new employee called Amelia to answer customer queries. What makes Amelia stand out from the rest of the staff, however, is that Amelia is a robot.
Nevertheless, Amelia can analyse natural language, understand context, apply logic, learn, resolve problems, and even sense emotions. Unlike other AI technologies that merely detect and match words, Amelia applies context to distinguish between different uses of the same word.
Raath believes this is a sign that“ we are seeing the beginning of singularity – not as something still coming in the future, but as a reality that is already here”. Singularity is the concept of artificial superintelligence triggering accelerated technological growth, resulting in fundamental changes to civilisation as we know it.
The Showcase will also present a live interview lunch at Montecasino’ s main theatre, where a hard-hitting journalist will be interviewing a panel of industry leaders about the reality of singularity. Delegates will be able to help drive the interview by voting for questions through the new Business Showcase app. The app will be available in June on both Android and iOS, and will also allow delegates to arrange meetings, plan sessions, and much more.
“ We are living in the most fortunate era in the history of humankind because we are on the brink of a paradigm shift. And if we embrace it, we will be part of a revolution,” Raath concludes. ■
For more information and to register for the conference( free to all end customers), visit: www. datacentrix. co. za / showcase-2017
“ We are living in the most fortunate era in the history of humankind because we are on the brink of a paradigm shift. And if we embrace it, we will be part of a revolution.”
“ The world is progressing so quickly that we are relying more and more on technology to do the thinking for us. In fact, if I told you what the temperature is in New York right now, you’ d possibly not believe me, but you’ d trust an app on your phone. This demonstrates how much faith you are already putting into technology,” Raath explains.
For the first time in history, technology is becoming advanced enough for singularity to become a reality.“ We are on the brink of the singularity civilisation, if you think of the velocity at which AI technology has advanced in the last 10 years and imagine that same velocity in just the next five years,” Raath adds.
“ The reality of singularity” will be explored in depth at the 2017 Datacentrix Business Showcase, taking place at Montecasino on 13 July 2017. The Showcase will feature the popular 20-minute speed breakout sessions that were introduced at the 2016 conference, featuring more use cases and interactive sessions with industry experts.
Rudie Raath Digital Technology Strategist
Datacentrix
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