The Social Implications Of "The Singularity Moment"

Recently, I read an article in Time Magazine titled 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal In it, they discuss the rapid advance in artificial intelligence, and have popularized the phrase "The singularity" as the moment when computers become capable themselves of designing more intelligent computers ad infinitum. Personally, I think that such an advance will free humans up to become more artistic, but I wonder how we will be able to understand and direct the technology if it progresses beyond the mathematical and technological comprehension of most of us?Social Ideas In Creation/Evolution? Mod, you decide where to put it.

It is always a minority of folks that actually want to go further. What is the purpose..the ongoing charge...for society in general, anyway? Not everyone is as excited about exploring the universe as you may be. People like to be served by technology...but few want to risk the cost of boldly going where no man has gone before.

We created Watson, after all. And whats wrong with infotainment? Humans like to play games and have fun. Its an emotional thing.Also jar, as you once pointed out, we have a unique emotion known as empathy. Could Watson even be programmed with such a thing?And if so...so what?

One example that I can think of is the common observation that young kids are more adept and proficient at computers than most mature adults not directly involved in the field. The younger generation "gets it" much easier than the older generation.I will admit that this is not a global thing. It is true only among those of us with access to computers and awareness of their usefullness. Technological progress, to me, is a bit like the stock market. It has its ups and downs, is never linear, yet has historically averaged an increase in overall value. For the sake of this discussion, additionally, I would assume that the technological impact (if and when realized) will initially only directly affect the affluent. The poor will always be among us. Yet even as we speak, there are global movements aimed at advancing the tools needed to become involved, such as the One Laptop Per Child initiative. When the splitting of the atom led to the worlds first atomic bombs, the impact of the technology did not directly affect the entire global population, but indirectly changed the course of the world forever. If there were such an event (that could be measured) where the capability of computers, nanotechnology, and perhaps artificial intelligence were to take a quantum leap of efficiency due to the ability of the technology itself to replicate itself and advance...that would be defined as a singularity moment. I am uncertain if there actually is such a moment, however, or if the collective changes will happen over a period of time. I suppose that the trend of society at large will depend on the reasons for the research. Often, wars are a reason to advance a technology. Global altruism has never been as important.

We had an interesting discussion back then, 6 years ago. Now, in a recent article in Futurism Magazine, Kurrzweil predicts the singularity moment will occur by 2045. Kurzweil Claims That the Singularity Will Happen by 2045In the article,10/5/17, Kurzweil says:

quote:

---

2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence. I have set the date 2045 for the ‘Singularity’ which is when we will multiply our effective intelligence a billion fold by merging with the intelligence we have created.

---

The article elaborates:

quote:

---

Kurzweil’s timetable for the singularity is consistent with other predictions,— notably those of Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, who predicts that the dawn of super-intelligent machines will happen by 2047. But for Kurzweil, the process towards this singularity has already begun.

​

That leads to computers having human intelligence, our putting them inside our brains, connecting them to the cloud, expanding who we are. Today, that’s not just a future scenario, Kurzweil said. It’s here, in part, and it’s going to accelerate.

---

Are we getting closer or farther?

Michio Kaku says that domestic colleges do not have students smart enough to even apply at where he works. I fear the lack of educated students in the United States is a growing problem, yet I don't see any solutions on the horizon. What do you see from your vantage point?

Perspective is everything. We can start by asking some basic questions regarding education in general, intelligence in general, and tie it in with human progress in general. There are many concepts, ideas, and realities that are only twenty to thirty years away. I recently watched a TED talk on one of them: The world could run out of food two decades earlier than thought (By 2027)Thus, while Kurzweil and other Sci Fi dreamers are telling us that we collectively will reach some sort of Turing moment where our collective intelligence will leapfrog, the whole concept of intelligence itself has to be defined by basic issues and problems such as how to feed ourselves or how to keep from spending money on 70 year old bombers lumbering through the skies with nuclear weapons.

They say we live in an age of information. Information, however, is more than numbers. I recently read an article that talked of the speed of the top ten world supercomputers. Top 10 supercomputers of 2017How will these machines contribute to solving real world problems? The question is not whether humans will be replaced by computers or even whether humans can someday think as a computer. The question is whether we as a species understand the consensus as to the best use of the technology and brainpower we possess.