Near-Term Indications and Models of a Singularity

The concept of a trend toward a singularity has been discussed now for over 50 years. While many focus on the accelerated rate of technology change, other indicators also seem to be showing similar trends to near-term rapid peaks such as population, fossil fuel use, world views, financial indices, environmental impact, and inequality. While simple models such as a hyperbolic trend fit some of these (e.g., population growth until recently), there are also other patterns such as discrete steps in the hyperbolic growth, more linear periodic K-Waves, and a need to model what may happen near the inflection time, both before and after. Various models have been considered which exhibit hyperbolic growth such as fractal dynamics of critical systems, complex adaptive systems bifurcation patterns, and combination of logistic and hyperbolic patterns. Lessons learned from recent rapidly changing systems might complement the models in providing possible near-term scenarios as the inflection time is reached and passed. Some lessons might come from one community (fundamental physics researchers) that was impacted by a change in the rate of progress in the early twentieth century. Other lessons might be gleaned from the seemingly qualitative peak in technology change at about the same time.