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Walsh's paper of February 2016 argues that there will not be the runaway exponential growth of a technological singularity, giving arguments that include diminishing returns to self-improvement, while predicting superhuman AI within 30 or 40 years. Copy claim link
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Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source
Date 2016-02-20 · publication Records dated 2016 → Role Contesting Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Engagement Engages a premise. It disputes the premise that each generation of self-improvement yields a constant or growing improvement. Scope and limits Walsh contests runaway growth, not superhuman AI as such; the paper states that he expects super-human intelligence in 30 to 40 years.
The evidence 02 primary source Supports the claim
The Singularity May Never Be Near ↗ arXiv:1602.06462 · 2016-02-20
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Source excerpt “I am not predicting that AI will fail to achieve super-human intelligence. Like many of my colleagues working in AI, I predict we are just 30 or 40 years away from this event. However, I am suggesting that there will not be the run away exponential growth predicted by some.” Location in source PDF p. 2, section "Some arguments against the Singularity"
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Machine-checked · 2026-10-31
Source details and check notes Authors Toby Walsh Version Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 32152855030443a00dfa3fb183c560c2ea34cfe30e592028d32a55290dfe40cc). arXiv v1, 20 Feb 2016. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-29 Language English (en) Attribution Toby Walsh, “The Singularity May Never Be Near”, 2016-02-20. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage, arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI (research/risk-debate). The quotation (50 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. No human editorial review. primary source Supports the claim
The Singularity May Never Be Near ↗ arXiv:1602.06462 · 2016-02-20
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Cite the original source Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.
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Source excerpt “if each generation only improves by half the last change, then the system will never get beyond doubling its overall intelligence.” Location in source PDF p. 3, "The “Diminishing returns” argument"
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-10-31
Source details and check notes Authors Toby Walsh Version Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 32152855030443a00dfa3fb183c560c2ea34cfe30e592028d32a55290dfe40cc). arXiv v1, 20 Feb 2016. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-29 Language English (en) Attribution Toby Walsh, “The Singularity May Never Be Near”, 2016-02-20. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage, arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI (research/risk-debate). The quotation (21 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. No human editorial review. Status and meaning Editorial status. Not reviewed by an editor . An exploratory record that no editor has accepted. This status does not say whether a person has read any linked passage. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.
Relation. A passage of the document disputes the proposition or a premise it depends on. The record documents the text’s position, not who is right.
Date. Date of the arXiv v1 submission.
Record ID rd-a4-walsh-2016-singularity-may-never-be-near