My turn to get on the soap box.
I can see computers becoming powerful enough to simulate “brainlike” activity by 2030, but neuroscience has a long way to go before a true “singularity” can be achieved. We have no idea how the brain really functions; we only approximate what regions of the brain carry on certain types of functions. So the processes behind human creativity are still relatively lost on us. Because of this, I think that all our attempts at artificial intelligence are eventually reducible to predictable algorithms. The processes which generate those algorithms (machine learning, etc) might be so complex that it becomes overwhelming to think about, which might tempt us to praise our handiwork too highly, but ultimately we’re still dealing with relatively primitive processes (when compared with organic networks, at least). Maybe sometime in the 2100s or 2200s a singularity will be more realistic.
I don’t see the decimation of jobs happening anytime soon. I’d be much more optimistic about it if we weren’t regularly innovating new technologies (not just in computing, but also in cooking, farming, and pretty much everything else). New technologies and processes require an initial investment of humanoid labor to produce and popularize the product before funds can support automation. Automation requires a heavy investment in metals and delicate electronic components which will be expensive as long as they are new, and will be subject to EOL when they are old. Widespread democratization of home robotics could offset that, but humans will be the primary innovators at least until the singularity. Greed still seems to be one of the primary motivators for innovation in humans, so such products will continue to be expensive.
Who knows what will motivate a singularity-type machine entity. If we designed and programmed that motivation ourselves, then we have created a predictable entity, which means that it is simply performing its function; so far sub-human that it can hardly be called intelligent in the same sense that people are intelligent. It wouldn’t be a real singularity.