What is the Singularity?
Actually, that's fully half of the answer. The Singularity (more correctly referred to as the technological singularity) was first introduced to me conceptually as a problem faced by science fiction writers. For the purposes of this post, let's pretend that that's not all it is.
Imagine a car driving down a winding country highway on a moonless night. The driver is able to see the road ahead, thanks to his headlights, and can thus navigate the twists and turns quite safely.
However, the distance his headlights can see ahead is fixed. If he were to gradually increase his speed, the amount of time the driver has to react to obstacles in the road would be diminished. This is not because his ability to see ahead has decreased, but because the amount of time between a point on the road coming into view of his headlights and the car reaching that point shortens the faster he travels. If he were to continually accelerate, the car would eventually reach a speed at which the driver could no longer react to an obstacle in the road.
Simply stated, the Singularity is the point at which humanity out-drives its headlights. Due to the ever-accelerating pace of technological advancement, there should in theory be a point at which our technology advances faster than we have time to predict its implications. Beyond such a point, it is impossible to predict the continued growth of humanity, though it will likely be radically different from life as we know it today.
I should probably stop and note that this all sounds very grim and perilous the way I've phrased it. Some people think it is - some of the changes that a post-Singularity society would undergo are at the very least unsettling and at worst nigh-unthinkable. But many people (including, I very much suspect, the author of Dresden Codak) view it as a good thing: advancements could hypothetically eliminate poverty, hunger, death...
In any event, there doesn't seem to be much point in speculating about the Singularity's effects on society as we know it (given that its, y'know, a Singularity and all...). We might all be downloaded into virtual-reality simulations. We could be cybernetically-enhanced superhumans fighting in wars between mega-corporations that rule what's left of the Earth. Maybe we'll live forever in unbroken bliss, looked after by our AI caretakers. Maybe we'll be eaten by grey goo.
The entire theory is based on examining certain trends in technological development which seem to exhibit logarithmic characteristics. Some of these trends seem to lead to positive feedback loops. For instance: Humans make fast computer -> Humans use fast computer to help design computers -> Humans make even faster computer. Moore's Law, which, when stated in 1965, predicted the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every two years for the next 50 years (it did), is (kind of) an example of this.
Whether this is valid is a fair question. Logarithmic functions always look scary from a certain point, but whether the ones in question reach an actual discontinuity or simply flatten out further down the line is up for debate.
Regardless, the general trend towards advancement is undeniable. However, for a true Singularity (I keep capitalizing that, and I'm not sure why) to occur, technology has to advance more quickly than our ability to understand its ramifications. Otherwise, for all your bionic eyes and downloadable consciousnesses, you're still just a transhuman.
We would be a very sorry species indeed if we did not either surpass our own limitations or create a species which did. After all, our biological ancestors gave rise to the more intelligent, capable human race, and even if it took many millions of years for that to happen, I don't see humans being that much different. At some point, life will be vastly different from what it is today.
However, whether that transition will occur under ethical oversight is up to us. Humanity must not out-drive its headlights, its ability to understand and evaluate the changes it forces on itself. Whether this requires us to slow down the car or simply buy brighter bulbs is yet to be determined.
Next Time: Freedom & The Allure of Piracy
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is a very interesting topic. It reminds me of a conversation I just had with my dad based on a NOVA episode about finding (and someday possibly fixing) gene deletions that contribute to the development of autism. Curing diseases means changing the human gene pool in ways that we can not foresee, but that doesn't mean we can pick and choose which diseases to cure because we're afraid that over millions of years, humans will become progressively weaker and more susceptible to diseases. With so many people suffering from MS, cancer, etc., I think it would be wrong to not help them because of something that may or may not happen.
ReplyDelete