**13. Technological singularity**

The technological singularity may be considered an event that shows a single technological advance or may represent a sum of many technological advances that in aggregate could lead to a break in the psychologic and physical evolution of humans with entirely unpredictable and unfathomable results [60]. In this hypothesis, there is the concept that artificial superintelligence will abruptly prompt blockbusting technological growth, resulting in impenetrable changes to human civilization. Currently, it is not inconceivable that AI may generate software-based AI learning with "deep learning" on "big data" to enter a phase of self-improvement cycles, with each new and more intelligent generation appearing algorithms will be installed becoming operative. It may swiftly create an intelligence burst resulting in a powerful superintelligence that would, qualitatively, far surpass the human intelligence. Such time is already started and may coincide with the progress of quantum computing (**Figure 1**).

*Interactive Multimedia - Multimedia Production and Digital Storytelling*

The language called "R" is a free open source programming language, which is mainly used for data analytics and statistical analysis. Compared with commercial software, open source software allows the operator to become a programmer and change the code. R is enabling users to develop custom AI apps to arrange within their organization with applications for predictive modeling, deep learning, extracting mission-critical information from reams of text, and several other applications. A revolutionary concept in digital data processing is quantum computing, which is based on the fundamental principles by which nature operates, i.e., quantum mechanics [127]. In a classic computer, the process works with bits, which at any given time can be in one of two states, i.e., 0 or 1. Conversely, quantum computers use qubits. These units can exist in any superposition of states 0 and 1 and are represented by a complex number, which is a number that can be expressed in the form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers, while i is a solution

satisfies this equation. When N qubits are in superposition, a combination of 2^N states are created. While a traditional computer can only hold one of these states at a time, quantum computers can perform significant operations on superpositions of states. The most basic operations performed on qubits are defined by quantum gates, which are pretty similar to logical gates used in standard computers using bits. The state of a quantum computer, a set of qubits called quantum register, can be visualized in some ways, typically as a 2D or 3D graph, on which points or bars represent superpositions of qubits, while their color or bar height represent amplitude and phase of a given superposition. Instituted in 1999, D-Wave Systems is considered as the world's first quantum computing company. D-Wave is the leader in the progress and distribution of quantum computing systems and software, and a few applications have been recently reported [128–131]. Quantum computing users have already developed over 100 early applications in areas including image analysis, optimization, machine learning, pattern recognition, anomaly detection, cybersecurity, financial analysis, software/hardware verification, and validation, bioinformatics/cancer research, traffic flow, manufacturing processes, and internet advertising. However, quantum computing is a work in progress, because D-Wave quantum computers do not currently perform arbitrary quantum gate operations on sequences of qubits. Quantum Computing Playground (http://www.quantumplayground.net/#/home) is a browser-based WebGL Chrome platform. It features a graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated quantum computer with a simple integrated development environment (IDE) interface and its scripting language with debugging and 3D quantum state visualization features. Quantum Computing Playground can resourcefully simulate quantum registers up to 22 qubits, run some algorithms (e.g., Grover's and Shor's algorithms), and has a variety of quantum gates built into the scripting language itself. All currently known and useful quantum algorithms that can run on quantum computers are based on the ability of the quantum system, upon specific rearrangement, to behave in unison. Large chunks of data can be processed at once, operating primarily on only a few particles, that is, in a massively parallel manner. This aspect will allow tasks that would require centuries of computing on a standard computer to require only a few minutes on a quantum computer. A key challenge for quantum computers is to provide and maintain isolation of individual qubits involved in the computation. Extreme and stable cooling is required to make wire circuits behave in a quantum fashion. Operated by an electrical signal from a classical computer, these systems must be maintained at these extremely low temperatures by a vast refrigeration apparatus involving a rare helium-3 isotope. Standard encryption methods rely on

= −1, and it is called imaginary number, because no real number

**12. Quantum computing and pathology imaging**

of the equation x<sup>2</sup>

**168**

**Figure 1.** *Evolutionary framework.*

In the last few decades, there has been accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life. These states may give the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the human history signalizing fears and concerns that the new superintelligence would continue to upgrade itself and annihilate humans considered ineffective and inefficient. Apart of science fiction, there is substantial ground that technological singularity started already with some applications of D-wave and processes of hidden Markov model (HMM) that run most of our daily and professional life [132]. HMM are useful in everyday life in many activities, such as speech recognition (e.g., Siri or Cortana), speech synthesis, speech tagging, machine translation, partial discharge, handwriting recognition, activity recognition, transportation forecasting. HMM is also useful in our professional life in activities, including single-molecule kinetic analysis, gene prediction, alignment of bio-sequences, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) motif discovery, time-series analysis, protein folding, chromatin state discovery, document separation in scanning solutions, sequence classification, metamorphic virus detection, solar irradiance variability, and computational finance. Although most individuals may suggest that the artificial superintelligence may be fully functional around 2050, there is no certainty that this may really happen. Multifractality and HMM-based integrated framework may represent two of the pathways to discover it in the nearest future.

## **14. Conclusions**

In conclusion, the rapid advancement of information technology has allowed the gradual acceptance of DP in diagnostic routine and education. The use of digital pathology in clinical services may go back to the early steps using personal computers, such as Commodore 64, but is now well recognized in multi-site medical centers with more than one location as well as in geographically very diverse health sites. The use of quad-core processing, 5G technologies, and quantum biocomputing will change the image of colleges and universities in the 3rd decade of this

**171**

**Author details**

Consolato M. Sergi

Edmonton, AB, Canada

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: sergi@ualberta.ca

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Alberta,

*Digital Pathology: The Time Is Now to Bridge the Gap between Medicine and Technological…*

century. It is up to us to use these new technologies to build students at the highest level of teaching. The initial limitation of funding should be overcome using private donations from charities or benefactors or instituting public-private partnerships.

This chapter is dedicated to the 73rd birthday of Professor Kim Solez, who is an American pathologist and co-founder of the Banff Classification, the first standardized international classification for renal allograft biopsies. In 2011, he pioneered a unique graduate-level medical course Technology and the Future of Medicine at the University of Alberta. I am honored to work with Professor Solez, whose contributions to digital pathology and artificial intelligence have been inspiring to me.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84329*

**Acknowledgements**

*Digital Pathology: The Time Is Now to Bridge the Gap between Medicine and Technological… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84329*

century. It is up to us to use these new technologies to build students at the highest level of teaching. The initial limitation of funding should be overcome using private donations from charities or benefactors or instituting public-private partnerships.
