The Singularity is Near,

Supercomputers will achieve one human brain capacity by 2010, and personal computers will do so by about 2020.

By the time we get to the 2040s, we'll be able to multiply human intelligence a billionfold. That will be a profound change that's singular in nature. Computers are going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Ultimately, they will go inside our bodies and brains and make us healthier, make us smarter.

Sometimes people talk about conflict between humans and machines, and you can see that in a lot of science fiction. But the machines we're creating are not some invasion from Mars. We create these tools to expand our own reach.

One could run these automata for trillions or even trillions of trillions of iterations, and the image would remain at the same limited level of complexity. They do not evolve into, say, insects, or humans, or Chopin preludes.

The purposeful destruction of information is the essence of intelligent work.