Future Forward
I don’t know if I go as far as “techno-visionaries” like Ray Kurzweil, who thinks: ”The Singularity Is Near, the entire universe will become saturated with our intelligence.” His concept of technological singularity has been around for a while, popular with people called “futurists”. It goes something like this: soon (within 30 years) we will create an intelligence greater than our own (in computer form), and that intelligence will be better suited to make improvements on itself than we are, hence a closed feedback loop of self-improvement that leads who knows where. At that point the human race, from the standpoint evolution and destiny, futurists argue, will more or less cease to exist as we know it. Does this mean my roomba will suddenly command me to clean the house? Or my ipod will task me with making it breakfast? Nobody knows, or can know, and that is the point. Scenarios range from The Terminator apocalypse to nice super-computers who still respect us because we are their parents. Sound Kooky? Afraid? Then volunteer here to ensure a safe Singularity.
There has always been a cult following for this sort of prophecy science. I used to eat it up. In fact, The Singularity reminds me of the work of late psychedelic cosmonaut Terence McKenna, and his Novelty Theory, which proposes that time is an evolving space for complexity, with a specific endpoint ( December 21, 2012 ), which when arrived at, er..well, you know…the universe implodes into grey goo, or the human mind evolves into God or something.
Don’t get me wrong, I love technology with the best of them, and these guys are all super smart, but I’ve grown wary of all end-games theorizing. It’s just too dramatic. Not that it isn’t fun to speculate, we’re just not too good at it. It’s definitely intriguing if not desirable to think the universe is goal driven, or teleological as the philosophers say, but come on, we just invented robot vacuum cleaners. I think we have a ways to go before they become intelligent. And we can pick up the thread again at that point.