Breedlove wrote:

So I hardly know that much of the "coming" singularity except that for many people it centers on the creation of a super-intelligence. What I'm wondering is whether or not this super-intelligence has to be artificial? Or can it be a human-uplift? Obviously I'm drawing an analogy from the game with its "animal" uplifts(although once you're uplifted to sentience I would argue you are no longer an "octopus" or a "gorilla"). I'm very interested in this singularity as I wonder if it will signal the end of the post-modern age.

If you can uplift a chimp you can likely uplift a human. In most of the singularity scenarios we have been working on at our institute the triggering process is either AGI getting good enough so that it can make even better AGI on a large scale, human intelligence getting good enough to lead to rapid self improvement, uploading producing an economic singularity with a lot of minds working fast or in close cooperation, or combinations of these. One special scenario is where better neuroscience - for example by learning from animal and human brains - teaches us how to make AGI, and then this bioinspired AGI runs off.