The technological singularity will come sooner than we think

I see a lot of predictions about how quickly we'll reach the technological singularity, where artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence. I think that when we say "20 years" we make the mistake of assuming evolution is linear, taking the past 50 years and extrapolating them into the future, without accounting for the exponential factor. I'd dare to say 5 years, and when it happens, it will take only days before we can no longer control it.

To get a sense of how fast we're moving, I wanted to capture it in an analogy, taking the most important technological breakthroughs in history and condensing them into a hypothetical 24-hour day.

12:00 am
Our ancestors, like Australopithecus, used the first tools.
3:12 am
Homo erectus discovered fire.
9:47 pm
Yes, at night: the Neolithic Revolution brought agriculture, pottery and the wheel.
10:33 pm
Humans developed irrigation systems.
10:40 pm
The first sailing ships appeared.
11:00 pm
Widespread iron production replaced bronze.
11:15 pm
Gunpowder was invented.
11:16 pm
The first windmills.
11:20 pm
The magnetic compass emerged.
11:22 pm
The mechanical clock.
11:34 pm
Gutenberg's printing revolution.
11:52 pm
James Watt's steam engine kicked off the Industrial Revolution.
11:53 pm
The first railway locomotive.
11:54 pm
The steamboat.
11:55 pm
Photography was invented.
11:56 pm
The mechanical reaper.
11:57 pm
The telegraph, the telephone and the internal combustion engine.
11:58 pm
Edison's electric light lit up the world; the car arrived seconds later.
11:59 pm
Radio, followed by the airplane, rocketry and television.
11:59:30 pm
The first electronic digital computer was designed.
11:59:40 pm
Nuclear power emerged.
11:59:45 pm
The transistor revolutionized electronics.
11:59:50 pm
Sputnik 1 opened the age of spaceflight.
11:59:55 pm
Personal computers and the internet shaped the modern world.
11:59:58 pm
CRISPR gene editing, with new possibilities and ethical debates.
11:59:59 pm
Artificial intelligence made history when AlphaGo became the best Go player in the world, surpassing human abilities through machine learning.

In just that last second, the most transcendental leap we have ever lived through as humans could take place.

The milestones, one by one

Year	Breakthrough	Milestone
3.3 million years ago	First tools	Our Australopithecus ancestors used stone flakes as knives and unshaped stones as hammers at Lake Turkana, Kenya.
1 million years ago	Fire	Homo erectus used fire, as evidenced by burnt material found in their caves.
20,000–15,000 years ago	Neolithic Revolution	Emergence of agriculture, larger groups, pottery, bricks, woven fabrics and the wheel.
6000 BCE	Irrigation	First irrigation systems developed in Mesopotamia and Egypt's river valleys.
4000 BCE	Sailing	The first sailing ships were used on the Nile River.
1200 BCE	Iron	Widespread iron production replaced bronze.
850 CE	Gunpowder	Chinese alchemists invented gunpowder, used for rocket-propelled arrows.
950	Windmill	The first windmills emerged in Persia, with possible independent invention in Europe.
1044	Compass	First definitive mention of a magnetic compass, in a Chinese book.
1250–1300	Mechanical clock	The first mechanical clocks appeared in Europe, used in cathedrals to mark time for services.
1455	Printing	Johannes Gutenberg completed the printing of the Bible using movable type.
1765	Steam engine	James Watt improved the Newcomen steam engine, crucial for the Industrial Revolution.
1804	Railways	Richard Trevithick built the first railway locomotive at an ironworks in Wales.
1807	Steamboat	Robert Fulton's steamboat traveled up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany in 32 hours.
1826/27	Photography	Nicéphore Niépce created the first photograph by capturing the image of his courtyard.
1831	Reaper	Cyrus McCormick invented the mechanical reaper, revolutionizing agriculture.
1844	Telegraph	Samuel Morse sent the first message over the first long-distance telegraph line, between Washington D.C. and Baltimore.
1876	Telephone	Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call, to his assistant Tom Watson.
1876	Internal combustion engine	Nikolaus Otto built an engine that ran on burning fuel.
1879	Electric light	Edison invented the carbon-filament light bulb; the first power plant opened in 1882.
1885	Automobile	Karl Benz developed the first modern automobile; commercial success came in 1888.
1901	Radio	Marconi transmitted the Morse code letter "S" across the Atlantic.
1903	Airplane	The Wright brothers achieved the first powered airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1926	Rocketry	Robert Goddard successfully tested the first liquid-fueled rocket: it flew 12.5 meters.
1927	Television	Philo T. Farnsworth developed the first electronic television transmission system.
1937	Computer	John Atanasoff designed the first electronic digital computer, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer.
1942	Nuclear power	Enrico Fermi led the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
1947	Transistor	Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley demonstrated the first transistor, revolutionizing electronics.
1957	Spaceflight	The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, starting the space race.
1974	Personal computer	Personal computers emerged with the Altair, Apple II, TRS-80 and Commodore PET.
1974	Internet	Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn developed TCP/IP, the foundation of the internet.
2012	CRISPR	Doudna and Charpentier developed CRISPR-Cas9 for gene editing, with enormous possibilities and ethical debates.
2017	Artificial intelligence	AlphaGo became the world's best Go player, surpassing human abilities through machine learning.