You comment almost comes off dismissive - saying that there is only one path to the singularity; by mapping the brain first. If you look at discoveries in several areas, it's happens in leaps and bounds. Think about jet engines, radar, atomic weapons, the computer and mobile phones. All happened in huge leaps, not just by adhering to one rigorous standard and making small inroads here and there.

I'm pretty sure the singularity is a long, long way off, but it will happen. Humans have to evolve, and at some point, we won't be the top of the evolutionary ladder anymore. Whether that means evolving to something more cyborg like, or creating another race of robot humanoids (where you're going to have inherit conflict), it will happen. The dinosaurs didn't last for 65 million years without evolving several times themselves.