There’s been a lot of virtual ink spilled on “the singularity” recently. The cosmic harmonic of the information age. Shangri-La in silicon. A computer scientist’s answer to the Book of Revelations. Not a point of infinite density (as understood in astrophysics), but a technological shift worthy of the term paradigm — AI; hyperlinked machine networks approaching consciousness; smooth, seamless human-computer interfacing; robot bodies; everything your techno-fetishistic heart desires…
Ultimately revealing that the main source of this current hoopla is an article, “Signs of the Singularity“, by Dr. Vernor Vinge, who coined the term to describe this phenomena of technological apotheosis a few years ago. It is part of a special issue of Spectrum, official organ of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) (the “world’s largest technical professional association”), entirely devoted to this notion. There’s even a piece about the “who’s who” of the singularity set, demonstrating a disturbingly cultish enthusiasm for chummy progress at any cost. From the sociology of science perspective (a la Bruno Latour), it all looks very…ambitious. Forget the world as laboratory, we live in the world as network. Actors need not apply…
An illustration of this phenomena? The scattershot rejoinders to Vinge’s initial volley. Slashdot. io9. Bruce Sterling at Wired. Even the New York Times has something on Ray Kurzweil, famed futurist and singularity supporter (who I’ve mentioned before).
If anything is synchronized and ready to reach a new plateau of coordinated consciousness it’s the ability to turn bits of feeble futurism into meaty media fare. I dunno, there seems a deep and unblinking blindness to the human side of the equation in all these high-wire acts. And that’s the variable which always ends up being the ultimate tipping point.
To me, the idea of the singularity seems singularly unrealistic. Of course, only time will tell…
June 4, 2008 at 3:22 am |
Point 1: Can we call you something else other than having to write ‘Necromancer’ every time? Yes, I am one of those peculiar persons who do not like to address my views as a speech to an invisible mass but address them to a particular person. I ask because you write anonymously… :-/
Point 2: I am unsure why you are sceptical about the concept. True, the vision may not be realised in your lifetime or mine, unless we live for another 100 years or more. But it is a possibility. Intelligent machines are already seamlessly integrated in many modern lives. So why the scepticism?
Point 3: Since you are a historian, I am sure a bit of political science comes your way too. What do you think of causal prediction related theories? How do we know when we see an idea ‘whose time has come’? Are we doomed to find this out only in hindsight?
June 4, 2008 at 11:19 am |
Wow, multi-point comment. Cool!
1: Some other readers call me Sparky. That works, I suppose.
2: Everything is a possibility. A large rock hitting the earth and making the singularity singularly irrelevant is a possibility. But is it probable? I don’t know. The history of technology suggests I be wary of strangers bearing gifts. Entropy tends to carry the day. Besides, how can we take the idea of an AI seriously without it ending badly?
3: You can feel it. The computer revolution is making people dumber — lazier about what they retain, how they think. The basic understanding of the world many have is pretty grim and the majesty of modern machines is partly responsible. Having said this, it must be admitted it is also socially transforming. But the undertone is of a decay of the soma — a new more passive physical stance — the Cartesian “brain in a vat”, if you will. The singularity doesn’t seem like that much of a Utopia to a vitalist. In fact, it is ultimately techne gone awry, a monolithic mechanistic malevolence. In short — hell.
June 5, 2008 at 2:22 am |
We aim to please, what can I say? :-)
1. Don’t the ones calling you Sparky know you in the real world? But if you say it is ok, it is ok, Sparky!
2. Ah the possible-probable divide.
But I shall focus on your question instead. I think the inherent difference is hope and best efforts.
Nearly everyone who falls in love or gets married runs the risk of their heart being broken or it all going belly-up. Very high probability. But it is the cliched triumph of hope over experience that prevails, does it not? One must make one’s best efforts that things do not end up disastrously.
Same with any technology. We cannot predict the future course of anything, challenging it is for sure, but does that not make life worth striving for? Why would we want to live if every darned thing was predictable and safe?
Come on, Sparky, live up to your name. Live a little, play a little and take a few risks even if they are thought experiments. What say?
3. “Feel it”? “Feel it”?? Hmm. My entire PhD is about feeling? That is what it comes down to, huh…
I do not take such a grim view on things. See 2. above. Despite it pissing with rain in England for the last few days – not today – I keep a sunnier view on the possibilities.
Monsieur, I see a philosophical divide here. I am happy to feel unity, to feel one with my pet robot who cleans my house and files my papers. I indeed await that day that such a robot arrives in my world. (Disclaimer: my undergraduate project was on robotics so I am biased, hugely so if you like.)
June 5, 2008 at 10:05 am |
I thought challenging the general consensus of modern technological positivism was “living a little” — quite literally. Anyway, there are going to be wildly different perspectives on this stuff. Striving to improve technology and commune with one’s “pet” robot is all very well, but there are so many more fundamental things to consider first. Instead of striving to push ourselves into the 22nd century already, we should worry about getting everyone up to speed on the 20th. This is where a historian of medicine stops and wonders about the idea of progress.
A historian of medicine named Sparky. :)
June 5, 2008 at 1:08 pm |
Ah, now I am just back from a Thomas Friedman lecture where he talked of his forthcoming book. Will blog about it (mais, bien sur). He calls Year 2000, 1 EC. More when I get to blog. :-)
February 25, 2010 at 12:31 pm |
[...] time, time is beyond us. The idea that things are coming together — the dream of a “singularity” as imagined by Kurzweil,et. al. is absurd (and really only a shadow of Pierre Teilhard de [...]