Bad news.
Turns out we’re not headed for any well-known flavor of Apocalypse, neither an old-fashioned nuclear holocaust nor the returned Christ casting sinners into eternal flames for the delight of the saved.
Rather, it’s the escalating pace of technology that will bump us into the void. How else to put this? The expansion of knowledge and the acceleration of thought far, far beyond the human scale. The point where machines out-think us. The Singularity.
You might have thought a word like Singularity could refer only to something radically unique, such as the way your spouse eats. In fact, Singularity refers to the point where computers become so powerful that a new form of intelligence, a super-intelligence, emerges. The science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, who wrote about this in a 1993 essay “The Coming Technological Singularity,” likened this point to the boundary around a black hole, beyond which the known rules no longer apply. He figures it’ll happen about 2030.
Here’s John Tierney’s take on this.
I’m skeptical. For a super-intelligence to emerge, it would require that those of us who currently author ideas, become less and less the authors and more the conveyors of ideas. It would require that the one-time creator become more the transcriber, that mental energies that were once considered ends—the production of thought—now become the means—the transmission of other people’s thoughts, who themselves are transmitters of other thoughts not their own, which from come other non-authoring transmitters.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
1 comment:
Sage Against the Machine,
Oh Rob, you are wise in the ways of non-authoring transmitters (could this be contributing to extended periods of non-authoring?) Anyway, the kind of singularity that I see on the digital horizon (I apologize in advance if this phrase was previously banned) is that borne of lack of human communication. Already, I see large groups of people looking down at small boxes of "wires" (actually, I think the wires have even been replaced with tiny things that replace wires) at every pause to check their smartphones, PDAs, etc. These devices go by the names of "Rumor", "Razor", "Glyde", "Blackjack", "Blackberry", "iPhone" and my current device "Instinct". I once gave you a technological communication marvel from a previous generation. I thin it was called "Royal" or "Olivetti" and it was a beautifully crafted machine and did not try to deceive to the contrary with a cute or trendy name. It responded to the touch of the user and with proper digital (the fingers kind) stimulation from a learned user, such as yourself, would produce great literary works, poetry, and even a simple correspondance. I think you should attach that 40 lb. device to your belt and parade around North Carolina where onlookers would be impressed by your obvious enlightenment.
Post a Comment