Piece: Journey into Singularity (Testpiece, Championship Division)
Composer: Mathias Wehr
Commissioned by: German Brass Band Association
Performance: Winning Performance in the Championship Division of the German National Brass Band Championships 2022
Conductor: Corsin Tuor
Band: 3BA Concert Band
Program notes:
Artificial Intelligence - Problem Solver or Threat? The term technological singularity is understood to mean a point in time at which artificial intelligence (AI) surpasses human intelligence and thus rapidly improves itself, which would accelerate technical progress to such an extent that the future of humanity behind this event can no longer be foreseen. The first superintelligence would therefore be the last invention that mankind will make, since from this point in time future inventions would largely be developed by machines.
The term became popular through the 1998 book "The Singularity is near" by the US computer pioneer and author Raymond Kurzweil, which sets the date of the singularity to the year 2045.
What at first sounds like a distant vision of the future has been coming increasingly within reach for a number of years. The theory of singularity is much more than a science fiction gimmick. The predicted point in time of the singularity has been postponed several decades into the future by futurologists. What is certain, however, is that we are already on the “Journey into Singularity” and it is very likely that it will come as a surprise, possibly even for those involved in the development.