The Singularity

I've been vaguely aware of the event known as The Singularity for a few years now, I think. But it's been one of those background noise ideas -- something of which I have a cloudy concept in my mind, but would be hard-pressed to impart a definition.

Today all that has changed.

It popped up recently while surfing political and news sites, and I went down the rabbit hole. Be prepared before you Google. Take it too seriously (not saying you should or shouldn't), and it gets scary very fast.

To save you the need to Google before you finish reading this entry, here's something to whet your appetite if your understanding of this event is hazy, as mine was.

The Singularity is the moment in human history (still yet to arrive) during which change, innovation and invention is happening so rapidly, it will be impossible to know what's coming next. No plans, no lists, no predictions, no forecasts because the variables will be in flux. All of this is based on the principle that the time between major human technological advances is ever-narrowing, and at some point, the gap becomes negligible, and therefore major change is constant. Changes on the scale of using language, developing agriculture, inventing the wheel, the Industrial Revolution, the computer, and the Internet. Constantly changing everything, only to be changed in the next moment by the next big thing, only to be changed by the next big thing, etc. until advances approach universal constants like the speed of light, and the flux will slow and The Singularity will be over.

And the current estimates of when this will happen? Somewhere around the year 2030. That's based on current trends in computer speed advancement, and how quickly computer processors approach the power of the human brain.

There's a whole A.I. component to The Singularity, as well. When machines become aware and begin building themselves, there are a few possible outcomes. Actually, the outcomes are infinite, because you can't predict anything about the The Singularity by virtue of its definition. but here are three. 1) The machines (or something) wipe us out. 2) We "upload" our conciousness into chips, and retain our human awareness, but now live electronically, thinking with the power of the new computers, making computations in split seconds, and consequently adopting a very different concept of time. Now that our brains are moving at computer speed, a year in this new form will be sufficient to render our humanity as "a fetal memory" as one writer has put it. 3) We implant chips into our brains (and any other body part) becoming superhumans. Though, of course, the organic components of our bodies will eventually expire, driving the need to replace them with machine parts, until we become androids with a soul.

Here's a very intesting, if obscure/dubious, article in which the author interviewed neuroscientists who identify themselves as Transhumanists, dedicated to surviving The Singularity and become "post-human," the next step in our species' development. This is all pretty sci-fi, but hey, it's something to think about. And fascinatingly scary.

There are plenty of folks out there who say this will never happen, that the limits of the human mind and other factors (such as the likelihood we'll wipe ourselves out with nukes or disease first) keep The Singularity from becoming a likelihood. There are also A.I. experts who laugh at the notion of machines beyond human intelligence within forty years. While the processing power will be there, intelligence and awareness are so far beyond our abilities, it's enough to keep it in the realm of internet marginalists. On one message board, several people invoked Goedel's Theorem (another mindbender) as proof that machines will never become self-aware, at least not at the hands of humans. Check it out. And then ponder the writer's example at the bottom:

"I am lying." True or false?

So maybe all of this is wasted worry, but now I at least know the idea is out there and can impart its principles with some degree of clarity. While we will all be constantly surprised by definition during The Singularity, perhaps you won't be by its appearance.

What if. That's all. What if.