Singularity’s Flaw
What follows is entirely impractical. Those of you who have come to rely on this blog for the pragmatic and practical take on technological innovation may want to skip what follows.
What got me off topic today was our book club. We’re currently reading one of my favorite novels: “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” by Cory Doctorow. (Read it for free here.)
It got me thinking about something called “the singularity” again. This is a term first coined by Ray Kurzweil to describe the point in the near future when the pace technological innovation becomes, for all intents and purposes, infinite. Here’s a short video describing one aspect of the phenomenon:
THE IMMORTALISTS – a short film by Jason Silva
Immortality is within our grasp. Yes, for real. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Sadly, there’s a catch. Even when humanity is smart, we’re still horrible at dealing with each other. Sooner or later someone will decide that what the world really needs is a good apocalypse.
After all, in an age where the pace of technological innovation is infinite, you’ll have about three dozen cheap and easy ways to end all human life listed on six dozen popular blogs.
It could be that this phenomena of knowing that anyone could end it all at any moment might be the new way people come to live with death. For a time, mankind won’t be fearing their own deaths, but rather the end of all civilization.
What will finally end it, of course, will be those who try to prevent the end from coming. As organizations are formed to lock down the “dangerous” information or censor “dangerous” people, there will be a backlash from people objecting to being controlled. The schism between the opposing points of view will rise until eventually it produces someone who can’t stand an eternity of humanity being controlled in this way.
So they’ll end it for all of us.
When people make guesses as to how the world might end, they usually point at natural phenomena or ecological disaster. I’m putting $50 on the singularity. Any takers?
How does one collect on a bet concerning “how the world might end”?
Seems like whenever we figure out who wins, there won’t be much point in collecting.
[...] makes the idea of a monitoring and all-knowing Big Brother even more tangible. In the post Singularity’s flaw Caleb Booker develops a grim vision: if knowledge and technology develop at a rate which is supposed [...]
L Zoel – yeah, I thought that was the implied joke… hmm. Need to use more smiley faces.
I haven’t done any reading on singularity, but this post got me thinking..
Wouldn’t the suggestion that someone could destroy the whole of human civilization in a post-singular era imply that we’re still all operating from the same, single planet and network?
If, in this scenario, we’re assuming singularity has, in fact, happened, and our consciousness can be successfully uploaded to the machine (i think that’s how it works, right?), wouldn’t we be working from remote network nodes by then? Probably scattered throughout the solar system, or the galaxy, or whatever.. some of which are completely disconnected from the others. Even if someone could destroyed the web today – it wouldn’t necessarily destroy my home network, or my actual computer hardware.. I’m guessing we’ll have backups of ourselves, and could just reboot somewhere else.
Space travel is tough for fragile human bodies, but if we become spiritual machines, we’ll be everywhere…
Ok, I’ve had too much coffee
back to work! Thanks for the thought provoking post!
Jon – well you’re not wrong there, but I suppose that just means that when someone finally gets around to destroying all of humanity they’ll have to make the universe suddenly implode.