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Subscribe to RSSThe Singularity is back in the spotlight, thanks to a Time cover story focusing on inventor/futurist Ray Kurzweil and his forecast that "the end of human civilization as we know it" will come in about 35 years ... just as Kurzweil is nearing his 100th birthday.
Kurzweil is doing everything in his power to make sure he's ready for the big event, which he calls the Singularity. He takes 150 pills a day, keeps himself in shape and looks forward to the day when he can start re-engineering his own body for immortality. And he's not alone. Kurzweil has been spreading the word about the Singularity in a series of books and two documentaries ("The Singularity Is Near" and "Transcendent Man") as well as academic programs at Singularity University in California's Silicon Valley.
Kurzweil projects that computers will match human brain power by around the year 2030, opening the way for a rapid merging of electronic and biological intelligence. Around the year 2045, that merger will lead to a worldwide transformation so dramatic that its follow-on effects would be hard to predict. (Hence the term "singularity.")
"It's a little alarmist, but the idea is that ... it's a kind of cyborgian era, when there's a combination of man and machine. Even now, Parkinson's patients have neural implants in their brain, basically," Time's managing editor, Richard Stengel, said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" today. "Why couldn't you be doing that for regular folks, to increase memory, bandwidth, all of that kind of stuff?"
The development of a search-engine / smart-phone / machine-translator system that's wired directly into our brains would certainly mark a turning point. I referred to the Bluetooth/Google/Babelfish implant four years ago, but the idea goes back at least to the "microsofts" described by William Gibson in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer."
Would such devices count as the merging of man and machine? Is the Singularity nearer than we think? I'm betting that the human-vs.-machine divide will become fuzzier and fuzzier — thanks to gimmicks such as Wafaa Bilal's webcam implant and next week's "Jeopardy" face-off as well as more substantive developments. What's your bet? Will the Singularity still be science fiction in 2045? Or will it be ancient history?
More on the Singularity:
- What will happen when machines outthink us?
- Inventor sets his sights on immortality
- Q&A with Ray Kurzweil about the immortality quest
- Wikipedia keeps score on Kurzweil's predictions
- For Singularitans, humans are so yesterday
- Human evolution at the crossroads
Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."
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Some machines already outthink some people. This I am sure of. But machines will never have free choice. Some human will build some formula into them that determines their choices.
Free choice - Asimov's laws of robotics are very well thought out, often times it might be better if we as humans did NOT have complete free choice. But in the case of non-human sentient creations (not limited to "robots"), if they had complete freedom of choice, they very well might decide that human life is too chaotic, destructive and too prolific - so, eliminate the contaminators! Let's not give the robots and computers that much free choice.
But, beyond that obvious restriction, one of the goals of intelligent computing is to create a system which is capable of self-programming to achieve a goal not set by the programmers. Sort of like a baby that is given a toy - it starts checking it out, determining its characteristics, then making some conclusions and assumptions about it. That would be the goal of intelligent computing, that presented a situation, it would make as many conclusions and extrapolations as possible. That is the edge of the singularity, when electronics begin examining their universe and determining the laws of it. There you will have intelligence and information expanding at an almost infinite rate - which is one definition of singularity.
DAMNIT MSNBC !!!!! ...... Could you please run some articles on sane people?? and topics which interest the average American ????? Some good news about regular folks for a change ????????????? For god's sake, every time I open up an article to read something interesting, you throw a nutcase idiot at me.
I don't particularly want immortality, nor do I want a computer hooked into my brain. It sounds like a strange combination of Voldemort and the Borg, and you know what happened to them in the end.
Kurzweil has his undoubtful merits. But when it comes to foresight I ask myself: Have technophile guys like Kurzweil read the news lately? Before we reach the year of (Kurzweil style) singularity we might be gone as an accelerating hightech civilization anyway. Why?
Laws of complexity dynamics
The laws of complexity dynamics and "Ecological singularity" might set an end to the game, at least to "simple math of exponential growth".
A few researchers have been making such claims for years. Disturbingly, recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that they are right. It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. newscientist.com
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newscientist demise civilisation ]
Eco-singularity
If the avalanche of (anthropogenic) trouble exceeds our technological solution capacity then this fragile civilization will have a breakdown / vanish in the "black hole of eco-singularity" in a very short period of time.
Eco-Singularity is near. Definition (II) (futurefacts blog)
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Eco-Singularity Definition ]
Even celebrities start to think about fragility of civilization:
“It will not take much for people to hit the panic button. The amount of convenience that people rely on based on electricity alone,” Kutcher said. “You start taking out electricity and satellites, and people are going to lose their noodle. People don’t have maps anymore. People use their iPhones or GPS systems, so if there’s no electricity, nobody has maps.”
The actor warns that in the event of any such meltdown, societal cohesiveness could fray and lead to chaos in the marketplace and beyond.
I would not bet on the Kurzweil scenario, since it is completeley based on a strong and healthy R&D (sub)system, a scenario which does not take into account the totality of "system earth".
Adding the source to the last quote/paragraph:
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Ashton Kutcher cbslocal World ]
"the end of human civilization as we know it" will come in about 35 years" And that's about how long another snake oil salesman has to profit off "spreading the word about the Singularity in a series of books and two documentaries".
The problem with implant technology is that some system has to be in place to decide who lives and who dies. My concern is that system will be the free market and the winners of the free market ( the wealthy/super wealthy) will get to live forever, while us un-enhanced naturals live under the tyranny of a near immortal plutarchy .
Yeah, and don't forget the politicians - how could we possibly live without that lot!!! Seriously though, you still need "unenhanced naturals". Otherwise who is going to fix the plumbing, wire the electrics, cook, shop, mop and slop. The wealthy/super-rich...? they would'nt know where to begin..
Interface me to my computer because I want to teach this dam machine of mine how to think. The problem as I see it is there is always somebody on the other end trying to tell my personal data what to do. Then every time I am solicited with an advertisement I can answer with the following reply. Im sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again!
A good counter to this story can be found in the most recent episode of Surprisingly Free--a podcast about technology, public policy, and economics, hosted by my colleague Jerry Brito--Brito interviews Jaron Lanier, pioneering computer scientist, musician, visual artist, and author of "You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto." In the episode Lanier talks about the danger of the thinking that surrounds the "Singularity" and how it may lead to people unnecessarily giving up their freedom to technology and those who control it.
You can find the podcast at
We are not going to go anywhere significant in outer space without robots. Alongside developing fuel-less spaceships, singularity has got to come otherwise we are stuck ad infinitum in our own corner of our galaxy. I have always said that humans are not built for space travel - it is just too complicated as we need too much in the way of life-support. I totally agree with WychDoctor George (#51.1) that self-programming robotic technology is the vision and in space travel is the only way we can reach out and explore our own Galaxy - a Galaxy that is around 100,000 light years across - let alone the Universe. It is just never going to happen like in Star Trek.
I saw this guy speak at a convention and he is definitely "out there." Yeah, 150 pills a day... that's clean living. And yes, it will be sci-fi in 2045 like it is now. Remember: when I was a kid in the 70's they were saying we'd have flying cars running on water by now. How'd that turn out? Maybe by 2045 all the Republicans will have been flown into the Sun...