One reason I am sanguine about the technological singularity is that I have seen it coming for over 50 years. In 1975, when I was 17, I wrote: "Before man can most effectively aid his problem solving machinery, he must first understand it. At present, his understanding is very poor. However, when the breakthrough in understanding the brain occurs, improvement will come very fast and in an exponential increase. Once man has created an intelligence greater than his own, that intelligence should be able to create an intelligence greater than itself, as man whose intelligence is less than its was able to create its intelligence. Thus, the level of intelligence will shoot up with incredible rapidity, probably within the space of years. Within a few years of a breakthrough, which may occur any time now, man will either have been left behind by a superior intelligence of his own making, which he can no longer understand, or he will have become that intelligence and will no longer be like anything imaginable today."