The Singularity is Near

If any of you are science nerds, then the Singularity should be as familiar to you as the hiding place for your Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit. But I realized how few people actually know of and understand this idea.

If you have any sort of historical perspective, or perhaps have been alive for more than 20 years or so, you might have noticed the increasingly rapid advances in technology. The idea that advances in technology spur new technology isn't new. It isn't even really that surprising. However, what is surprising is the speed of advancement in our own lifetimes (even if you haven't hit 25).

The Singularity is a point in the future human history in which technological advancement becomes so rapid that prediction on the state of human civilization becomes impossible. This isn't some crazy off the wall theory, either. Many scientists have commented on this and many believe it to be inevitable. The theorized events of singularity include ideas such as the thought that humans will become increasingly in control of our biology to the point where we will be able to merge with machines.

Here is a fascinating article on Time Magazine about this. It is well worth the read.

2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal

On Feb. 15, 1965, a diffident but self-possessed high school student named Raymond Kurzweil appeared as a guest on a game show called I've Got a Secret. He was introduced by the host, Steve Allen, then he played a short musical composition on a piano. The idea was that Kurzweil was hiding an unusual fact and the panelists — they included a comedian and a former Miss America — had to guess what it was.

On the show (see the clip on YouTube), the beauty queen did a good job of grilling Kurzweil, but the comedian got the win: the music was composed by a computer. Kurzweil got $200. 

Kurzweil then demonstrated the computer, which he built himself — a desk-size affair with loudly clacking relays, hooked up to a typewriter. The panelists were pretty blasé about it; they were more impressed by Kurzweil's age than by anything he'd actually done. They were ready to move on to Mrs. Chester Loney of Rough and Ready, Calif., whose secret was that she'd been President Lyndon Johnson's first-grade teacher.

But Kurzweil would spend much of the rest of his career working out what his demonstration meant. Creating a work of art is one of those activities we reserve for humans and humans only. It's an act of self-expression; you're not supposed to be able to do it if you don't have a self. To see creativity, the exclusive domain of humans, usurped by a computer built by a 17-year-old is to watch a line blur that cannot be unblurred, the line between organic intelligence and artificial intelligence.

That was Kurzweil's real secret, and back in 1965 nobody guessed it. Maybe not even him, not yet. But now, 46 years later, Kurzweil believes that we're approaching a moment when computers will become intelligent, and not just intelligent but more intelligent than humans. When that happens, humanity — our bodies, our minds, our civilization — will be completely and irreversibly transformed. He believes that this moment is not only inevitable but imminent. According to his calculations, the end of human civilization as we know it is about 35 years away. 

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