Motivation (David Chalmers)

David Chalmers' essay "The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis" clearly sets out the motivation for this volume:

One might think that the singularity would be of great interest to academic philosophers, cognitive scientists, and artificial intelligence researchers. In practice, this has not been the case. ... I think this resistance is a shame, as the singularity idea is clearly an important one. The argument for a singularity is one that we should take seriously. And the questions surrounding the singularity are of enormous practical and philosophical concern. (Chalmers, this volume/forthcoming)

We hope that working towards this volume will help changing the situation illustrated in this quote.