Again, I think we are hovering around the definition of "life". From my understanding, the "singularity" refers to artificial intelligence - not necessarily "life". With that said, I would expect different forms of life entities to develop within different ecosystems - just as we see on Earth. Just because you don't see fish flopping around on land anywhere doesn't mean they don't exist. Similarly, just because you don't see - oh, let's say silicon-based life forms - here on Earth (or do we? I can't remember what all was discovered around those magma vents in the ocean), doesn't mean they don't exist on other planets, in other star systems, etc. To limit our expectations based on what we have experienced so far seems to be the one area where humanity has continued to show its own idiocy for millenia. If there is ANYTHING we have learned from the slow march of scientific discovery, it should be to expect ... well, ANYTHING.
But anyway - back to the singularity, and AI... I don't think you need to recognize it as life to recognize that it (and technology as a whole) is approaching a point where its development, and the knowledge available to mankind as a whole - is increasing to the point where human brains cannot keep up. Once computer programs can write new programs that improve upon themselves, not just self-replicating, but self-evolving... we have absolutely no way of predicting what will become of them. And I personally can't wait to see it happen.