The Singularity is near; it will arrive in 10, 50, or 100 years depending on whom you talk to. Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google, examines the value of expertise in predicting the future, and discusses his thoughts on artificial general intelligence, based on his past experiences at NASA and current work with Google.

Do you appreciate when someone brings a fresh perspective to a complex and daunting issue? Well can you imagine an issue more impenetrable or discouraging then the Singularity? From the "How Far are We from Advanced AI?" session of the 2007 Singularity Summit, Paul Saffo offers some new advice. He recommends that we find some poets and novelists and whisper in their ears about this stuff. Then hopefully they will help shape what the Singularity should be, rather than what we hope it will not be.

"Nine years to the Singularity, if we really, really, try," says Dr. Ben Goertzel, chief science officer and acting CEO of Novamente. Is this really possible? Dr. Goertzel believes the path to the development of Artificial General Intelligence - a real thinking machine with human level intelligence and beyond - can be accelerated through the use of virtual worlds as incubators for nascent artificial intelligence systems.

Despite misconceptions to the contrary, early state AI systems are working in the real world and creating a lot of value for the companies that use them. Neil Jacobstein discusses practical uses of AI in many diverse industries and tasks. He compares the technology around early AI systems with the modern ones being developed today, and tells what has and hasn't worked based on 50 years of perspective.

Dr. Stephen Omohundro tells what characteristics a self improving artificial intelligence will need and how we can shape it to include human values. The economic rational theory that has trouble explaining many human actions is the key theory that will guide the actions of a self improving AI. He explains the emergent attributes such an AI with preferences and beliefs will exhibit, and how to prevent the nightmare scenarios that movies and fiction writers have long feared.

As we anticipate the possibility of a coming singularity, we ask "What shall our investments bet on and how will the financial climate differ?" Peter Thiel, investor and cofounder of PayPal, however, has a different view. He argues that singularity-like behavior is already here - as seen in the recent and seemingly accelerating cycles of boom and bust. In this talk from the 2007 Singularity Summit, Thiel discusses this and some unique strategies to manage risk.

The goal of Artificial General Intelligence is to create a machine with the abilities to learn, use common sense, and solve general problems. And it must do this better than humans. Peter Voss has been working in AGI since the 90s and in 2001 started Adaptive A.I. Inc. specifically to develop a commercially viable AGI engine. In this talk from the 2007 Singularity Summit, he describes how AGI will be accomplished, what are the benefits, and projects a healthier, wealthier, and more moral world, all through the science of AGI.

Technology is becoming more entrenched in every part of our life, and we need to be aware of where that might lead us. Jamais Cascio gives four possible scenarios based on whether technology is used to augment or simulate reality and whether it is internally or externally focused. Because of the human bias inherent in any technology, he argues that we need to democratically include all of the world's stakeholders to avoid having these scenarios become dystopias.

In the quest for an artificial general intelligence (AGI), researchers should model their approach on human developmental psychology and neurobiology. Sam Adams of IBM Research led the development of an experimental AGI that would learn based on experience, bootstrap a mental model of itself and its environment, and cull associations that were poor predictors. He achieved impressive results by basing his architecture on the development of the human mind, the only successful path to human cognition so far.

How close are we to the era where intelligent machines will make decisions for us? As systems become ever more autonomous, machine decisions may outstrip our ability to predict them, creating the need for an artificial morality. Yale bioethicist Wendell Wallach takes the role of friendly skeptic in this deeply thoughtful and balanced look at the promises and perils of artificial intelligence, computational ethics and the singularity.