The
technological singularity is a hypothetical event in which
artificial general intelligence (constituting, for example, intelligent computers, computer networks, or robots) would be capable of
recursive self-improvement (progressively redesigning itself), or of autonomously building ever smarter and more powerful machines than itself, up to the point of a
runaway effect—an
intelligence explosion—that yields an intelligence surpassing all current human control or understanding. Because the capabilities of such a
superintelligence may be impossible for a human to comprehend, the technological singularity is the point beyond which events may become unpredictable or even unfathomable to human intelligence.