The term Singularity refers to the theory that — in conformance with the way technology has been advancing— ultra-sophisticated technology is inevitably likely to emerge. Technology so advanced, it would surpasses human intelligence and capability.

Singularity has become a common theme in pop culture and science fiction and it certainly hasn’t been ignored by academics. When it comes to the debate over whether the moment of singularity will actually arrive… the jury’s still out.

A recent article by Tony Prescott, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield, takes a look at this issue.  Before presenting his personal opinion, Prescott raises an important question: How should Artificial Intelligence (AI) really be compared to human intelligence? If you ask Prescott, human intelligence encompasses much more than the raw brain power of the average individual— something that evolved to its current capacity around 100,000 years ago. For this reason, Prescott maintains that we should actually be comparing AI to our collective human intelligence. “After all, as an entity, AI can stretch across multiple machines. Likewise, the human race amounts to much more than the sum of its parts when we share our capabilities. And why strip us humans of our intelligence-enhancing artifacts?… intelligence-boosting technologies have hugely expanded our ability to apply shared knowledge and control our environment according to our goals…cultural and scientific development have led to a larger, longer-lived and better-educated human species.”

This notion of collective intelligence is something cyberneticist, Francis Heylighen, refers to as “Global Brainpower.” And according to Prescott, this communal strength makes the possibility of singularity happening far less likely. Additionaly he argues that while humans are working hard to make machines more advanced, they’re still far from being on par with many human qualities.

Humans are experts in the seemingly simply skills of acting in and understanding our world. Robots however, are not— the clumsy maneuvres at robo cup tournaments certainly highlight this fact. And in the long run, Prescott argues that there is no economic incentive for replacing this aspect of human intelligence “machines will continue to be engineered to take on the tasks we do poorly, rather than the ones we do well. Like symbiotic systems in nature, the future partnership of people with intelligent machines will be successful because its two halves complement, rather than copy, each other.”

Tony Prescott is also the Director of the Sheffield Centre for Robotics (SCentRo), Director of the Active Touch Laboratory, Co-Director of the Adaptive Behaviour Research Group and a Visiting Fellow at Bristol Robotics Laboratory. You can read the full story about his take on super-intelligent machines HERE.

Could we reach an age of cibernetic immortality? It’s a controversial question (to say the least) however, Dmitry Itskov is now making it loud and clear that he thinks the answer is yes and the Russian media tycoon doesn’t stand alone in his opinion. By founding the Russia 2045 movement in 2011, Itskov is now supported by a team of over 30 experts including some of Russia’s leading astronauts, physicians, mathematicians, neuroscientists and engineers (oh, and he’s also recieved the thumbs up from Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama).

So what does this ambitious initiative entail exactly? The end goal is primarily to create the ultimate avatar by 2045. The project is divided into 5 and 10 year periods, that aim to deliver an increasingly sophisticated avatar: Avatar A is embodied as a robotic copy of a human that can be remotely controlled via Brain Computer Interface; Avatar B is planned to possess a human brain that is transplanted to the avatar at the end of a person’s life. Avatar C promises to hold an artificial brain capable taking on the memories and personality of a person at the end of their life and finally, Avatar D plans to go a step further by making the avatar hologram-like.

What’s the motive for this movement? According to Itskov, modern civilization can’t save us from the limitations of our physical bodies, or from diseases or from death. He maintains that humanity currently follows no road map and we’ve reached a point where our consumer societies are eating up the resources that are much needed to produce true technological breakthroughs. In his eyes, humanity is essentially stuck in a rat race trying to keep up the status quo… hence the need for a new mankind!

Avantgarde as all this may sound, the US’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently dished out 7 million dollars of their 2013 budget to a project named ¨Avatar¨. Similar to Russia 2045′s vision of Avatar A, this avatar would be built for military purposes, allowing soldiers to operate it via Brain Computer Interface. Itskov’s plan is to develop this kind of technology outside of the military realm, expecting to advance research across diverse  fields such as: medicine, neuroscience, cognitive sciences, nanotechnology, robotics and many others along the way.

It’s safe to say that both these projects aim to push the boundaries, however that is what science must consistently do. While we still have time to ponder over where we might stand on the issue of eternal life, Ray Kurzweil will remind us that technology continues to progress at an exponential rate. ¨They say war is too important to leave to the generals and technology is too important to just leave to the technologists… society needs to put a high priority on understanding where we’re heading.¨ Watch the video below to hear more of what Kurzweil has to say.