In this week's edition of


NewScientist, Doug
Lenat of


Cycorp, creator of the "Cyc"
system, says, "I believe we are
heading towards a singularity and we
will see it in less than 10 years."

Lenat makes this bold prediction
based on the progress his system has
made towards achieving human-level
common sense. The Cyc system now
contains some 3 million
"assertions," or statements of fact
contained within logical clauses.

Impressive as that is, sheer
numbers are not the point. "We
are not trying to maximise the
number of assertions," Lenat
says. Rather, he wants to limit
them to the bare minimum that
will allow Cyc to collect data
on its own. He says Cyc is
getting close to achieving that
number, and it is already
advanced enough to query each
input itself, asking the human
operator to clarify exactly what
is meant.

Sometime this year it will be
let loose onto the web, allowing
millions of people to contribute
to its fund of knowledge by
submitting questions to Cyc
through a web page and
correcting it if it gets the
answers wrong. "We're very close
to a system that will allow the
average person to enter
knowledge," Lenat says. He
envisages Cyc eventually being
connected to webcams and other
sensors monitoring environments
around the globe, building its
knowledge of the world more or
less by itself.

Of course, we've heard
predictions before about how quickly
superhuman artificial intelligence
would arise and how significant its
impact would be, i.e., the


Singularity.

We're not experts on AGI, and so
we can't say how soon, if ever,
human-equivalent cognition will be
achieved on a synthetic brain. But
we are experts on advanced


nanotechnology, and we do
feel safe in stating that
integrated, exponential,
general-purpose molecular
manufacturing is likely to be
developed


within the next ten years.

Indeed, the more we learn about


progress being made in


enabling technologies,
and the more we


study and refine


basic MM theory, the more
clear it becomes that


we don't have much time.

Will MM come first? Or will AGI
precede MM and trigger a
technological singularity? Only time
will tell, obviously. But whether or
not smarter-than-human intelligence
is just around the corner, the
anticipated


societal and environmental impacts
of molecular manufacturing are
potentially so disruptive that we
cannot afford a "wait and see"
attitude.

If MM is developed before the
world is prepared to manage it


safely and


responsibly, the result
could be


nano-anarchy,


nano-tyranny, or


something even worse.
Devising and implementing wise,
comprehensive, and balanced plans
for


global management of this
transformative technology is not
just an interesting challenge. It
may in fact be a matter of life and
death.