XI- Singularity

Welcome to the Robot

I recently discovered something awesome.Well, it depends on your definition of "awesome". It's called Technological Singularity, or "Singularity Theory". I had to share it. As I mentioned previously, I don't think there is a bigger self fulfilling prophecy then mankind creates it's own demise through technology (as opposed to pollution, 2012/Mayan calender, etc. theories). Let the nightmare begin!!!!

"A technological singularity is a hypothetical event occurring when technological progress becomes so rapid that it makes the future after the singularity qualitatively different and harder to predict."- Wikipedia

That doesn't sound to bad, but how about:

" Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."- Vernor Vinge, SDSU. Written in 1993

That sounds a little bleak. But more specifically:

"...a story that goes like this: one day in the not-so-distant future, the Internet will suddenly coalesce into a super-intelligent A.I., infinitely smarter than any of us individually and all of us combined; it will become alive in the blink of an eye, and take over the world before humans even realize what’s happening.
Some think the newly sentient Internet would then choose to kill us; others think it would be generous and digitize us the way Google is digitizing old books, so that we can live forever as algorithms inside the global brain."-Jaron Lainer, New York Times

OH MY GOD! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Not necessarily. But probably.

Computers are our loyal friends, like a good lap dog! How would this happen?

"Although technological progress has been accelerating, it has been limited by the basic intelligence of the human brain, which has not, according to Paul R. Ehrlich, changed significantly for millennia.^[10] However with the increasing power of computers and other technologies, it might eventually be possible to build a machine that is more intelligent than humanity.^[11] If superhuman intelligences were invented, either through the amplification of human intelligence or artificial intelligence, it would bring to bear greater problem-solving and inventive skills than humans, then it could design a yet more capable machine, or re-write its source code to become more intelligent. This more capable machine then could design a machine of even greater capability. These iterations could accelerate, leading to recursive self improvement, potentially allowing enormous qualitative change before any upper limits imposed by the laws of physics or theoretical computation set in."-Wikipedia

Praise thy CPU!

Singularity theory is referred to constantly as a "technology" religion of sorts, kind of like a 1's and 0's End of Days. But what is most disturbing about the notion of the coming singularity, in my opinion, can be boiled down to three things:

Singularity Theory is:
1. Based in science (which, unlike Scientology, which is surprisingly not based on science but instead around an alien Jesus being trapped in an electric mountain prison)

2. Already happening. As talked about in Jaron Lainer's NY Times article:
"That is, people perform machine-like activity, copying and relaying information; the Internet, as a whole, is claimed to perform the creative thinking, the problem solving, the connection making. This is a devaluation of human thought."
The more automation, the more computer algorithms that we use, the more the power balance has been shifted to computers. We are the drones that carry out the simple, arduous tasks.

3. Unpredictable. A key component of singularity theory is "the turning point". Once society and technology hit this point, which is inherently hard to predict, that the change will be rapid and unpredictable

Conclusion

All the great inventions in the world today are limited by the power of the human mind. Even the intelligent computer models that help us do things from manage power systems, map DNA, to predict extreme weather patterns, are inherently limited to some extent because they can be linked back to human creators. Despite the complexity, vastness, and diversity of what has been created, there are human specialists (mathematicians, engineers, chemists, etc.) that are involved in the process and know how processes and inventions operate and why they work. A great portion of our inventions took lifetimes to create.

What the singularity represents is the outcome when that string of limitation is cut, and when their is no specialization. Oh, and "AIs could have other uses for the scarce resources mankind uses to survive." Like oxygen.

Have a great week!

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