[hellsteed]

A high estimate for the speed of the electrochemical
signals sent and received by the brain’s neurons is 150
meters per second. The speed of the electronic signals sent
and received in a computer’s CPU is the speed of light;
nearly 300,000,000 meters per second. The computer is thus
about two million times faster than the human brain. Even
higher estimates of neuronal capacity would still rate
electronic circuits as at least a million times faster.
Imagine that the superior speed and accuracy of
electronics was combined with an artificial intelligence that
dedicated its intelligence to improving its own intelligence,
and that smarter superintelligence improved the design of
its own intelligence. If this pattern repeated so that each
recursive self-improvement occurred at a faster and faster
rate, technological progress would accelerate beyond the
ability of biological humans to follow. The first superhuman
AI might merge all of the computational power on the
internet into its own power, master all of the significant
information on the internet, and then reorganize the entire
global brain of the internet so that it “wakes up” as the
global mind of God. This is one path to the Singularity: the
creation of greater-than-human intelligence. Beyond the Singularity, expanding out into space, the entire universe
may then “wake up” as God.