By some reasoning we're already past it, in the middle of it, it's just around the corner or it will never appear. It's a totally meaningless question without first defining what the singularity actually is. The world we live in today is already very far removed from the one that I was born in but the linkages are still there to be followed.
To know how far the singularity is 'off' is by definition impossible, it means that you have knowledge of which linkages are required to get to the point that you won't be able to predict the ones after that.
After all when the singularity is here the world we will end up in will have no relationship to the one we are in today.
For the record, I think we will see a period of accelerated progress and then we will either fuck up or things will slow down again, I don't believe there will be a runaway event.
There are a lot of different definitions of "singularity" but generally it means creating superhuman AI, which then makes better AI and does things we can't imagine and so on.
To know how far the singularity is 'off' is by definition impossible, it means that you have knowledge of which linkages are required to get to the point that you won't be able to predict the ones after that.
After all when the singularity is here the world we will end up in will have no relationship to the one we are in today.
For the record, I think we will see a period of accelerated progress and then we will either fuck up or things will slow down again, I don't believe there will be a runaway event.