The Singularity

Today’s monthly share-in at the office was about The Singularity.   I had not heard of that term before because I was never a member of the local Star Trek Club.  But upon further explanation, it all made sense to me after seeing countless sci-fi films.

In 1983, Vernon Vinge, a sci-fi writer declared, “Within 30 years, we will have the technological means to create super-human intelligence.  Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”

Raymond Kurzweil, whom Bill Gates called "the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence", also predicted that in 2045 man would become immortal.  "By the mid-2020s, we will successfully  reverse-engineer the human brain.   By  the end of that decade, computers will be capable of human-level intelligence."

By 2045, Kurzweil estimates "that the quantity of artificial intelligence created will be about a billion times the sum of all the human intelligence that exists today.

The advances in science will allow us to manipulate our bodies and take charge of our own evolution".   

Pursuing Kurzweil’s theory, that means we can junk Darwin: alter evolution and reverse the ageing process.

It all sounds plausible especially if you think about the advances in science in the last few decades.  In the mid-90s, my cel phone weighed 2 pounds and was as big as a flat iron.  Jeopardy's latest champion was a computer.  There are 2,000 robots fighting in Afghanistan.   Google is making computers drive cars.  The iPad is a huge improvement over the first computer which weighed 30-tons, had 6,000 switches and 18,000 tubes, and occupied an entire room.

The movies have tackled artificial intelligence a lot since the era of silent movies.  But have they gotten it right?  In Kubrick’s 1968 classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey (written by Arthur C. Clarke), HAL the machine is fully independent and self-aware.  Trips to the moon and Jupiter are as easy as trips to Hong Kong.   It’s been 10 years since ’01.   Clarke’s vision remains a fantasy.

There’s one other sci-fi film shown in 1984 that says it all: 2010: The Year We Make Contact. 

Chuck was right in saying that perhaps scientists should just focus their energies on disaster-preparedness.  A great tsunami could wipe out the likes of HAL.  We welcome new and powerful gadgets. But wiring ourselves to be as super-intelligent and immortal as machines?!  It would be embarrassing to stop ageing by 2045.  Just caught Death Becomes Her on HBO for the nth time.  A scary thought.