Technological Singularity

In futures studies, a technological singularity represents a hypothetical "event horizon" in the predictability of human technological development. Past this event horizon, following the creation of strong artificial intelligence or the amplification of human intelligence, existing models of the future cease to give reliable or accurate answers. Futurists predict that after the Singularity, posthumans and/or strong AI will replace humans as the dominating force in science and technology, rendering human-specific social models obsolete.
Those who believe such an event may occur most often see it as either an effect of the first smarter-than-human entity capable of recursive and indefinite self-improvement, as the culmination of a pattern of accelerating technological progress persisting throughout history, or both

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity