First we had cave people discovering fire. That was a technological advance, along with the invention of tools, and then the wheel. You had the printing press. That was major. But bigger leaps were to come: from Galileo, daVinci, and other great scientific thinkers; from the Industrial Revolution to Marconi (radio science) and Rosalind Franklin (main researcher of the DNA double helix).

With each advance, the knowledge curve turns up. Sometimes it plateaus for a while, but it never turns down. With the computer age, this curve has reached a rate of rise that exceeds anything in the past. That’s where we are right now.

What happens when, say, 30 to 50 years from now, that curve reaches a rate of rise that is indistinguishable from straight up? The answer is: no one knows.

And that’s the Singularity.