Consciousness is a stupid and unreasonable goal, it is basically impossible to confirm that a machine isn’t just faking it really well.
Singularity is at least definable…Although I think it is not really the bar required to be really impactful. If we get an AI system that can do the work of like 60% of hardcore knowledge workers, 80% of office workers, and 95% of CEOs/politicians and other pablumists, it could be really change how the economy works without actually being a singularity.
Those numbers are approximately zero, because demand will immediately 10x as soon as AI makes that affordable, as computers have always done. So, profitable (if the AI can cost less than a human for the work), but not changing how the economy works
If white collar jobs get automated away to the extent that blue collar jobs were in the industrial revolution, that will be, by definition, a massive upheaval of the economy.
Singularity is at least definable…Although I think it is not really the bar required to be really impactful. If we get an AI system that can do the work of like 60% of hardcore knowledge workers, 80% of office workers, and 95% of CEOs/politicians and other pablumists, it could be really change how the economy works without actually being a singularity.