The Singularity Is Here

People often make note of how fast things seem to change with regard to technology. Often, they take for granted that things have always been this way and always will be. During the 20^th century, though, the leaps forward in technological capability seemed unusually prodigious. In the First World War, men had still fought from horseback and some troops had gone to battle with pikes. Less than 30 years later, the Germans tried to forestall defeat with jet fighters and the United States clinched global victory with nuclear weapons. 

  

Technological advance, it seemed to some observers, was not advancing in linear fashion. Rather, progress was occurring in exponential fashion. As computers came into use after World War II, Moore’s Law was defined. The speed of computation, generated by the number of transistors placed on integrated circuits, appeared to be doubling every two years. In fact, this speed was itself subject to acceleration and computers began to double their capacities in even shorter periods of time as the 21^st century dawned.  

Even as this recognition of accelerating progress was dawning on scholars and scientists around the world, some had already recognized that this would have profound and incalculable effects on the future and on mankind in general. If technological progress was happening after shorter and shorter junctures, then it would someday, naturally, approach infinite acceleration. Obviously, should that happen, the days of wondering at the advances in modern technology would cease. There would no longer be any change to look back on because change would be infinite. We would be in the Singularity, according to some of these thinkers.

It sounds ridiculous to our ears. However, 3D printing would sound like magic to people from a hundred years ago. So might travel to the Moon and the Internet.

What Is the Singularity?

There is not a lot of agreement on the singularity. It is easy to mistake it for the kind of apocalyptic nightmare that some people like to see in movie theaters. The usual scenario involves robots “waking up” and turning on their human masters. In fact, many people envision the Singularity positively as a juncture in which everything will be possible and death will come to an end. Some such groups have been accused of a form of millennialism, like those Christians that quit working and sat contentedly waiting for Kingdom Come when the year 1000 approached.

Most thinkers who spend time on the topic tend to see the Singularity’s primary characteristic without regard for how that moment in history will turn out for mankind. Instead, they are concerned about the mysteriousness of the time period after this event. It is called the Singularity in order to compare it to the singularity at the center of a black hole. Beyond the borders of this small region, the physical laws of the Universe purportedly break down. Beyond the arrival of a technological singularity, no one can be sure what will happen.

Impact of the Singularity

Some thinkers, such as Ray Kurzweil, see a bumpy road on the way to a Singularity that will eventually result in bliss for the survivors. You must use ominous terms such as survivors in Kurzweil’s scenario because there will undoubtedly be struggles along the way. He foresees potential problems such as widespread and chronic unemployment before the culmination of the event sometime around 2045.

Since automation will take over more and more jobs, there simply will not be a lot for people to do unless they have highly specialized skills. The closer we get to the Singularity, the fewer jobs and trades that will be safe form automation. Ultimately, when the Singularity arrives, there will be no jobs. Machines will have become more than human equals. They will surpass us and no longer need us.

Preparing for the Singularity

Kurzweil sees a way to survive and enjoy the Singularity. As it approaches, he suggests that people begin to incorporate technology into their fleshy substrates. When the Singularity arrives, people will be part of it rather than simply endure it.

The Singularity Is Here

Some doubters scoff at the idea of the Singularity. They accept that the world has undergone rapid change since the time of the Industrial Revolution. Some of these opponents of Kurzweil’s suggest that the progress will halt or falter as integrated circuits near the molecular limit for the walls that separate them. We are, in fact, approaching this point already. Other opponents simply put Kurzweil’s and others’ ideas on the same pile of predictions about the future that have failed to come true for millennia. 

However, in a final defense of the Singularity’s reality, some would suggest that we are already in it. After all, how many people have metal and plastic limbs or organs already? As for chronic unemployment due to automation, the current economic crisis presents itself as a possible precursor to Kurzweil’s vision. Perhaps we are already on the edges of the Singularity, like a boat caught in a whirlpool, doomed for the mysterious vortex of forces in the center.