May 22 2008 / by AlFin
Category: Culture Year: General Rating: 12 Hot
Cross-posted from Al Fin’s blog.
The abstract concept of a Technological
Singularity (TS) was made most famous in the recent past by
inventor Ray
Kurzweil. The concept has several overlapping meanings, but I
like George Dvorsky’s definition best:
The Singularity is a blindspot in our predictive thinking.
Humans are only evolved primates-monkeys and apes-with a limited
conceptual vocabulary. We are easily impressed by our technological
accomplishments. In networked opportunity societies, creative and
inventive persons are able to feed off each others’ ideas so that
during periods of economic surplus, the pace of innovation will
take off. In dark ages, totalitarian societies where information is
compartmentalized and otherwise restricted, innovation slows.
The Singularity is most often seen as a threshold into
ever-accelerating change precipitated by the development
of a machine intelligence with the ability to design its own
cognitive enhancement -something of a runaway positive feedback
cognitive entity. This development is often referred to as the
“tipping point,” the point of no return.
The more
sanguine examiners of the tech singularity concept are less
likely to see The Singularity as inevitable. Many developments
within society and government could short-circuit The Singularity,
sending into terminal mode. Imagine a world government ruled by a
Vladimir Putin, Josef Stalin, or Mao. Imagine world science,
academia, media, and governance being taken over by dysfunctional
post-modernist irrationality. Imagine the default human
society-stratification by wealth, knowledge, power, and a profound
inertial resistance to change. (cont.)
Persons who believe firmly in the inevitability of The
Singularity might be surprised to learn that the default human
society is the closed society, resistant to change. Most of them
have never known anything but open societies, born of western
civilization’s restless urge to expand intellectual horizons. They
live in an exceptional time, in an exceptional society, yet somehow
believe it to be the human default. That type of blindness comes
from forgetting to study history.
The distinction is important, because a default society
perpetuates itself, whereas an exceptional society must constantly
fight against entropy. We are only a few hundred years beyond the
European Renaissance, two hundred years beyond the early industrial
revolution, a hundred years into the era of human flight, fifty
years into the age of semiconductors. And already, the
sub-structure of western civilization is showing signs of reversion
to the default.
Without the networked opportunity society to sustain it, The
Singularity does not stand a chance. TS has always only been one
possibility among many. In order for The Singularity to succeed and
turn out well, it is vital for its supporters to understand how
easily it could be stopped.
Humans have the uncanny ability to overlook the most critical
shortcomings of any scenario or plan. That is one reason why “no
battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” It is also why
“naysayers” and “deniers” are so easy to discount. Caught up in the
enthusiasm of a grand idea, humans prefer to remain buoyed up in
the “vital importance” and “inevitability” of their visions.
Politicians have been repeating the phrase “we are the ones we
have been waiting for” for decades-probably much longer. It is true
that humans seem to be waiting to wake up into some higher
awareness, some more clear and potent existence. My variation on
the theme begins “we are the ones we have been afraid of…” Perhaps
fear has kept us from waking to our possibilities. The point is, it
is humans that need to change and find their way to an even better
networked opportunity society. Machines are not likely to be able
to do that for us.
When we are ready to make a “conscious machine”, we will know
how to make it “friendly” and at least quasi-wise. We are simply
not ready-in fact in many ways we are reverting to the default,
retreating from TS in terms of infrastructural societal needs. Even
should something that we interpret as TS occur, things can still
“go to hell”, and revert to default. We can always find ourselves
back at the beginning, picking up the pieces. Unless we do the
necessary preliminary work, and provide the foundation-the
substrate-for a sustainable TS.
For many, TS has taken on many aspects of “God”, an omniscient
and all-powerful entity that will guide the paths of the faithful.
But like the gods of practical people, TS helps those who help
themselves. TS cannot save us from our own laziness and inattention
to important details in the design of our own societies. TS relies
upon us in the most intimate way, since it is merely an outgrowth
of what we ourselves can grow to become. If we think TS can relieve
us of hard work and discipline, we are wrong. TS will not take care
of itself.
Rather than a unified, worldwide singularity, expect a
“fractured singularity.” Some will build the infrastructure and
prepare the components in a sustainable way. Most will not. The
long-term survivability of TS may depend upon early secrecy. TS may
have many false starts, aborted revolutions. Perhaps we can learn
from early mistakes in order to build a better singularity?
What do you think?
Is TS inevitable? Is TS necessary? Is TS sufficient? Is TS the
end, or a means to the end? Can TS save us from ourselves?
According to Vernor Vinge, here are some of
the ways The Singularity may not happen.
The last thing humans need now is yet another religion that
feeds into apocalyptic visions. We have enough apocalyptic visions
as it is without slipping that far into anti-rationality.
What kind of society can give birth to TS, and engage
symbiotically and sustainably with TS into the long term? We don’t
know, but we can give it our best guess. While working on the
foundations of TS, we need to work toward creating that kind of
society.
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