- Exploring Long-Term Thinking
- Kevin Kelly’s Perspective
- More About StratFor Forecasts
- Better Carbon Dating
- Get Acquainted with the Singularity
Over at io9, there’s an interesting article by Annalee Newitz. It’s titled What is the Singularity and Will You Live to See It? It’s an introduction to this weird concept.
The term singularity describes the moment when a civilization changes so much that its rules and technologies are incomprehensible to previous generations. Think of it as a point-of-no-return in history.
Most thinkers believe the singularity will be jump-started by extremely rapid technological and scientific changes. These changes will be so fast, and so profound, that every aspect of our society will be transformed, from our bodies and families to our governments and economies. (Newitz)
Huh?
The idea was popularized by Vernor Vinge back in 1993.
The acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this century. We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater-than-human intelligence. Science may achieve this breakthrough by several means (and this is another reason for having confidence that the event will occur). (Vinge)
Photo by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino at Flickr. Pretend it's a Bible or something.
Since then, one or two authors have explored the idea. Ray Kurzweil wrote a book entitled The Singularity Is Near. But is the singularity really near?
For techno-geeks, this stuff is a romantic notion. It conjures pictures of utopias and dystopias. It’s very Matrix. It also has something familiar that I can’t put my finger on. You have a transformative event leading to a radical change. All those who bought-in receive the luxury of immortality; they’re freed from their strictly biological chains.
The pace of our modern, technological change really is amazing and it inspires this fascinating dream. It’s easy to understand why there are people hoping for it. Hell, I would love being all singularitied – or whatever – but I remain skeptical. There’s the whiff of naive faith here.
