Simply put, technological singularity is a prediction that technology will progress at an unbelievably fast pace, so fast that the future will be unpredictable, unimaginable, and completely different than the way things are today. Of course there is much more to it, but this set of articles is just an introduction.
So what would take place if we ever did design computers that were more intelligent than us? Would human beings be rendered obsolete? Could humans and computers ever develop some sort of understanding? Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov was one of the first people to propose safety precautions for AI with his “Three Laws of Robotics.” The first law the computers must follow is that a robot may not injure a human being or let a human being get hurt through inaction. The second law is that robots have to comply with the orders given to it by humans, except when these orders would conflict with the first rule. And the third law is that a robot must protect its own existence as long as doing so doesn’t conflict with the first or second law. Of course, things don’t go down that smoothly in Asimov’s fiction.
In the last article of this series I spoke about technological singularity, which is a theory that technology will eventually advance so quickly that the future will be unimaginably different than it is today. I wrote about the fact that it is very possible that in the distant (or not so distant) future, a computer may be built that could outsmart a human being! So if the singularity may be looming in the future, how would humans get over that initial first hurdle of building a computer that is smarter than humanity? Theorists reason there are two ways: amplifying the intelligence of human brains until we are intelligent enough to come up with this computer, and artificial intelligence.
One of my friends has a company that delivers IT training labs to customers all over the world. There was a problem with his lab simulator for a complex environment which included storage, network, and virtualized servers. The customers were unhappy with the slow performance of the application over the Internet.
The small to medium-sized business is the backbone of the U.S. economy, and is finally getting enough respect to have its own acronym (SMB). The demands of modern commerce, however, can stretch the resources of mid-size companies, so if your business is in this category, you will always be interested in how to decrease your IT spending. Unless you have the budget to hire your own IT staff, and keep them trained and certified so they can coordinate all the maintenance and troubleshoot all the hardware and software, you may be better off making arrangements with a Managed Service Provider (MSP).
ITIL, or Information Technology Infrastructure Library to give it its full title, is a widely accepted standard for the management of IT systems within a business globally. Dating back to the 80s, it came about as the result of the British Government recognising the need for standards in IT.