Ron Bailey has a report on last weekend's Singularity Summit.

. . . the case for how exponentially accelerating information technology will spark the Singularity before 2050

As someone who's still waiting for my anti-gravity car so I can fly to work, or the lunar vacation I was promised in 1970, I take futurists with more than a grain of salt.

Exponentially accelerating anything doesn't tend to do so for very many twice lives. Technological progress rides on the wings or whims of nature, and nature has been very kind in the last 25 years to information technology. Not so kind, however, to fusion, space transportation, energy storage technology and a host of others. When IT hits the wall is a matter of conjecture, but sooner or later it will.

And then, of course, there's politics. The last culturally shocking advance of technology was right after WW2, yet here we are in the 21st century and it's still too expensive for most people to keep themselves thermally comfortable on a year round basis, since the benefits of cheap nuclear power have been politically nullified. I'd say there's a good chance that human level AI may be in the same boat.

Finally, I notice that the singularity thing has borrowed some of the most powerful elements of religion. If AGW = Armageddon then Singularity = Second Coming. So my question would be, was this a scientific or a religious convocation?