The scientists, the engineers, the
people that know, the people that observe, intuit, and surmise, even those that
pay no attention whatsoever, have all noticed that lately, the rate of
technological change has increased at a phenomenal rate. Notice the use of the
word “rate” twice in that last sentence. The rate has increased at a high rate.
That’s rate squared.
One or two of us have noticed its increase is so
great, in fact, that we are about to hit a point of no return—the Singularity.
But what is that point of no
return, that Singularity?
The Singularity is that exact
instant when artificial intelligence, AI, surpasses biological intelligence.
When computers become smarter than people. They already are, you argue. True,
sort of. They calculate faster, certainly, but intuition—that trait of humanity
alone— seems to escape them. They can’t pass a Turing test.
The Turing test was invented by
Alan Turing in the 1950s and consists of a computer fooling a human into
thinking it—the computer, that is—is a human. That it is alive, sentient,
aware, awake. I myself often have trouble convincing my partner that I’m human,
awake, and aware, so a computer that is able to do it is certainly impressive.
See http://cogprints.org/499/00/turing.html for Dr. Turing’s paper, “Computing Machinery and
Intelligence.”
But one day our engineers will unravel
the dark mystery of intuition, and they will bestow it upon AI. They will do
this by mimicking the protocols, the processes, the ways and means of the human
brain. They will discover how to define, describe, copy, digitize, the mind of
humanity. Our brains will become downloadable.
You see now what is meant by point
of no return. Once the human brain can be copied, it will be copied. And
uploaded. Onto what? Who knows. A new body maybe, synthetic or mostly that way.
Or maybe a data bank in Cleveland. Or a wafer of space-age polymer plastic,
ready to be popped into an iPod device and hologrammed into a virtual reality
world where fake smells and tastes are pumped in via tiny nanosphere robots
that will see to this post-human’s every need. Regardless, the human mind, and
perhaps the human itself by whatever definition we use, will be able to live
forever. Point of no return.
So, we’ve got techno-geek groupies
of Ray Kurzweil who look forward to the Singularity with excitement. They
prepare themselves mentally and physically for the great day of immortality.
They happily plan to become cyborgs, incorporating artificial organs and
molecular-sized robots into their tired and worn-out bodies, creating a new
them. They eschew learning by experience. One day all knowledge will be
uploaded. These people prepare their current bodies as best they can with
today’s primitive technology, an artificial joint here, a valve replacement
there. They race against time, extending their pathetic lives just long enough
to meet the Singularity. On that day, people in the know, people who are on the
leading edge of scientific endeavor (and have enough credit) will be able to
purchase a new body, or replace parts easily available from the local organist,
and I’m not talking piano player here.
On the other hand, some human
technocrats (the naysayers among the futurists who follow the general Bill Joy
position to the extreme) are frightened by the prospect of computers able to
think and know better than humans. They are scared of half-biological,
half-hardware beings that are super human. What will such creatures do to the
rest of us? The most of us. The members of the middle class that find the idea
of weekly transfusions of smartblood to get to the second coming a little
off-putting. Not to mention the fact that nobody’s health care plan covers
experimental therapy straight out of a science fiction story.
This group of fear-mongers insists
that robots— computers with legs—will have no use in the future for the weaker
race, Luddites who stupidly cling to the old ways. Surely the future superior
beings, robots with their quicker reaction times, faster computation skills,
bigger, fatter memory and the power to access it at a nanosecond’s notice (they
don’t even need to scratch their heads), will want to enslave the humans. Or
worse, euthanize us to put us out of our misery.
Then there are the few, the lonely,
the crackpot cranks who suspect that a funny thing could happen on the way to
the Singularity. Maybe the robots will buck intuition. Maybe they’ll prefer to
remain stonecold sober. Maybe their software will become obsolete the minute
they get it out the door. Maybe the AVs and Others will discover love and want
to remain.
And here’s another thing: who’s to
say the Singularity hasn’t already occurred? We’re all so patched into our TV
sets, mp3-player headphones, hi-speed Internet, and Bluetooth devices, we have
no idea what’s going on out there in reality anyway. We already are our
technology. In the end what’s the difference?
Call it fate. Call it Manifest
Destiny. Call it Murphy’s Law. One thing is for sure: If there’s a way to screw
up the human race, you can count on us to do it.
For information on the actual
theory of the Singularity, start with Vernor Vinge’s piece on the subject
(Vernor Vinge on the Singularity: http://mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html ). For the
science behind the theory read Ray Kurzweil’s, “The Singularity is Near,” (Penguin,
2005). To find out what the very real transhumanists are up to visit http://www.humanityplus.org/read/ .
To read Bill Joy’s controversial Wired article questioning our unbridled
development of technology, see Wired, April 2000, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need
Us,” http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html.
