Predicting beyond the next 50 years:

Here is a cool article on what might not happen and how singularity may not take place:
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/longnow/

Artificial Intelligence from Google?

Google's working on developing artificial intelligence   to add to their vast array of services from Google Earth to Google Calendar to Google Blogger to application that can make 3-D models online and store documents and video and music.. Go here to see a complete list of current Google apps


With the addition of AI added to Google's wide range of services we could really start to see things get interesting.  Google's personalized search which taps my previous searches to narrow my search results and prepare more accurate results seems to be one step in the direction towards AI:   This article talks more about Google's next steps

Another direction that is exciting is the use of humans to evaluate images on Google images.  Through tagging, users aid the Google brain by helping to categorize information.  A brain's basic function is to learn from the input of the users surroundings and apply that information to make decisions.  A brain does this by categorizing information and storing it in hierarchies and then outputting decisions based on that information.

Here is a video that describes some of this way of thinking of the web a sort of collective conscious or mass brain: