Technological Singularity

Singularity Defined and Refined

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The meanings of words change. Meanings evolve. Definitions of words are not set in stone, they aren’t unalterable commandments from God. Words are merely concepts humans have invented. The original definition of “awful” was apparently full of awe, worthy of respect.

Anyone can invent a word. Successful inventions enter common usage. All inventions are typically refined. The invention of words isn’t immune to refinement.

Misunderstanding often occurs regarding the word Singularity because this word is being refined, which is more common for new concepts. I think the Singularity is a colossal intelligence explosion, limitless intelligence, which creates utopia. It is not about mind-uploading or unpredictability.

Post-Scarcity is a clearer way to define the Singularity. Scarce intelligence is the source of all scarcity. Lifespan-scarcity, food-scarcity, or spaceship-scarcity all highlight how intellectual insufficiency is the obstacle to utopia. A resource called “intelligence” is the source of all technology. Technology is essentially intelligence, which means explosive intelligence is an explosion of resources.

singularity
Image by the artist Hugh C Fathers. All rights reserved ©

Our brainpower has been essential for our progress. Our minds erode scarcity. James Miller in his book Singularity Rising wrote: “Economic prosperity comes from human intelligence.” Ramez Naam also highlights the power of our brains in his book The Infinite Resource, thus regarding innovation he stated on his website: “Throughout human history we have learned to overcome scarcity and adversity through the application of innovation — the only resource that is expanded, not depleted, the more we use it.”

You could say we’re approaching an explosion of innovation. Technology conquers scarcity, technology liberates us from scarcity, but the power of technology (intelligence) is currently limited, scarce. We are suffering from a scarcity of ultra-sophisticated technology (intelligence) thus all resources are somewhat scarce. Human-level AI is extremely scarce, it is non-existent in the year 2013. When human-level AI is created we will start quickly eradicating all forms of scarcity, we will be rapidly approaching a colossal explosion of intelligence – the Singularity. [I was inspired to write about the definition of the Singularity after a G+ post by Mark Bruce. Mark wrote about the meaning of egregious, and wondered why the meaning had changed.]

The word egregious immediately caused me to think about the word gregarious, which is a logical connection to make. Both words are based on the Latin grex, gregis, which means “flock.” Gregarious means sociable, companionable; being part of the flock. Currently egregious means outstandingly bad, but the original meaning was merely outstanding, a shining example of awesomeness. Egregious is all about standing out from the flock, but interpretations could differ because standing out from the crowd can be good or bad. Farmers for example might not appreciate rebellious sheep.

The concept of the “black sheep” is a notorious idiom regarding non-conformity (standing out from the flock). Mark Bruce thought the meaning of egregious could have changed due to sarcasm but I think it’s merely a change based on obedience and conformity. The evolution of civilization has temporarily led to greater regimentation, mediocrity has been valued because it maintains social equilibrium, which I suspect is the reason why egregious (outstanding illustriousness) became bad. Blending into the flock became desirable while nonconformity became shockingly wrong. During the early stages of civilization, when populations were small thus less draining on resources, authoritarian control was less obvious or less needed, which could be why egregious originally described a valuable nonconformist trait of being “outstanding.”

Dealing with extremes can cause a switch between the two poles thus intense love can easily become intense hate if you are betrayed by a lover. Lovers can also become irrationally jealous, vengeful. Perhaps this is why the Singularity can either be utopia or dystopia, or perhaps it is why Snowden is either a hero or a traitor. Maybe it all depends on your viewpoint?

Insufficient intelligence causes humans to misunderstand situations. Fights over scarce resources occur, which causes civilization to emphasize the authoritarian disharmony of scarcity. Intelligent people via their foresight will think Snowden is a hero because they understand technology is eroding scarcity. Conversely Snowden has been deemed a traitor based on unawareness of the future. Snowden’s leaks represent decreasing scarcity but unawareness means people wrongly assume his actions threaten civilization.

Thankfully, despite the teething troubles of civilization, our collective intelligence is increasing thus there is less need to blend into the flock, although we do remain locked into scarcity-based battles. Sometime around year 2030 I think the authoritarian controls of civilization will be significantly abolished, but until then perhaps technology will be awful. Theoretically we could improve civilization much sooner but humans do suffer from scarce intelligence, which means it is difficult to be aware of the future.

The Singularity is a theory not an unalterable prophecy. The Singularity isn’t comparable to the biblical word of God, which warns against change: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”

If intelligence is the focus of the Singularity then it is vital to refine our understanding of the theory, we need to improve how we define it. We need to consider what the purpose of intelligence is. Is it smart to become more intelligent? Is colossal intelligence really intelligent if it fails to create utopia? Is colossal intelligence painfully slow or is it defined via a emancipatory quickness? Michael Anissimov has stated we should stick to the “original documents” (3m 29s) regarding the Singularity but I think unyielding closure contradicts the openness of intelligence.

In addition to Michael’s biblical immutability, which focuses on the “original documents,” there is an issue with the way that Singularity University defines the meaning of the intelligence explosion. I often encounter people who think the Singularity has already happened. This kind of misunderstanding seems perpetuated by Singularity University because they suggest the Singularity is merely “dramatic technological change.”

If we are merely considering dramatic technological change then it is understandable for people to think the iPhone or Google Glass is the Singularity. Corruption of meanings can be frustrating, very confusing, but restricting our ability to change meanings isn’t the solution. The solution is openness whereby all meanings can be debated without any one individual or organisation imposing their authority to create absolute definitions.

Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge have influenced my thinking but from my viewpoint they don’t fully comprehend the Singularity. Their biggest mistake is to think the Singularity is unknowable, unpredictable, beyond human comprehension. There is no rational reason to assume advanced intelligence would be unfathomable, in fact unfathomableness is decidedly unintelligent thus more appropriate for a censorious religion than explosive intelligence. Explosive intelligence should logically increase comprehension for everyone instead of decreasing comprehension.

A naked singularity, which has no event horizon, is a better analogy than standard gravitational singularities for describing our technological Singularity. Naked singularities are theoretically more powerful than standard black holes, they are more singular, thus metaphorically better descriptors of colossal intelligence. Standard singularities are comparatively boring.

Note also how instead of obscurantism recent black-hole research suggests that physics-ending singularities vanish, thereby creating bridges to alternate universes. This means that with the help of loop quantum gravity we might be able to deny the claim that the laws of physics break down in standard black-holes.

The black hole information paradox is a fascinating paradox. Perhaps information is not lost. Whatever the situation is regarding gravitational singularities, whether information is hidden or revealed, it should be noted obscurantism is not a facet of intelligence. [Although the CIA objecting to Snowden’s openness will probably disagree.] If gravitational singularities entail obscured information, if they are unfathomable or unknowable, then the metaphor is wrong because true intelligence is or should be opposed to [cosmic] censorship. Obscurantism is antithetical to intelligence.

Please note that despite the Singularity inevitably leading to widespread extrasolar, extragalactic and perhaps even multiverse colonisation, it is not a cosmological phenomenon. The Singularity is “only” metaphorically a stellar event.

Similar to how “egregious” had a different meaning at a different point in history, I think changing awareness will let people comprehend how the Singularity is opposed to obscurantism. In the future there will be no elitist restrictions and everyone will easily access explosive intelligence.

Maybe in year 2045 there will need to be Singularity whistle-blowers leaking classified intelligence from the core of the intelligence explosion? Obviously I jest when I state the intelligence explosion would need whistle-blowers. All restrictions upon knowledge will be explosively obliterated. The Singularity will be understood by everyone.

Incorrect definitions of the Singularity are mainly based on unawareness of how scarcity currently shapes our lives. Faulty predictions of the future fail to see how scarcity will be eradicated. The ramifications of scarcity ending are not appreciated. There is a failure to comprehend what the end of scarcity actually entails, namely how it relates to technology and/or information. Based on current circumstances people therefore envisage a future of scarce understanding – a future of restricted information where knowledge is limited to a minority of specialists. This entails incorrectly envisioned scenarios where the future is utterly unfathomable or robots kill humans then destroy the Earth: “…the risks of machines outwitting humans in battles for resources and self-preservation cannot simply be dismissed.”

Finally, the Singularity is capitalized because it is a unique event distinct from gravitational singularities. It is similar to how the Big Bang, the Mesozoic Era, or the Industrial Revolution is capitalized.

 

About the Author:

Singularity Utopia writes for Singularity-2045, a Post-Scarcity orientated website dedicated to increasing awareness regarding the coming technological utopia. The goal is to make the Singularity happen sooner instead of later.

 

 

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Noam Chomsky on AI: The Singularity is Science Fiction!

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Noam Chomsky

Dr. Noam Chomsky is a famed linguist, political activist, prolific author and recognized public speaker, who has spent the last 60 years living a double life – one as a political activist and another as a linguist. His activism allegedly made him the US government’s public enemy number one. As a linguist he is often credited for dethroning behaviorism and becoming the “father of modern linguistics” (and/or cognitive science). Put together his accomplishments are the reasons why he is often listed as one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century. And so I was very much looking forward to interviewing him on Singularity 1 on 1.

Unfortunately our time together was delayed, then rushed and a bit shorter than anticipated. So I was pretty nervous throughout and messed up some of my questions and timing. Never-the-less, I believe that we still had a worthy conversation with Dr. Chomsky and I appreciate the generous though limited time that he was able to grant me.

During our 30 minute conversation with Noam Chomsky we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: the balance between his academic and his political life; artificial intelligence and reverse engineering the human brain; why in his view both Deep Blue and Watson are little more than PR; the slow but substantial progress of our civilization; the technological singularity…

My favorite quote that I will take away from this interview with Dr. Chomsky is:

What’s a program? A program is a theory; it’s a theory written in an arcane, complex notation designed to be executed by the machine. What about the program, you ask? The same questions you ask about any other theory: Does it give insight and understanding? These theories don’t. So what we’re asking here is: Can we design a theory of being smart? We’re eons away from doing that.

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

 

Who is Noam Chomsky?

Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His undergraduate and graduate years were spent at the University of Pennsylvania where he received his PhD in linguistics in 1955. During the years 1951 to 1955, Chomsky was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard University Society of Fellows. While a Junior Fellow he completed his doctoral dissertation entitled, “Transformational Analysis.” The major theoretical viewpoints of the dissertation appeared in the monograph Syntactic Structure, which was published in 1957. This formed part of a more extensive work, The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory, circulated in mimeograph in 1955 and published in 1975.

Chomsky joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955 and in 1961 was appointed full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (now the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.) From 1966 to 1976 he held the Ferrari P. Ward Professorship of Modern Languages and Linguistics. In 1976 he was appointed Institute Professor.

During the years 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, NJ. In the spring of 1969 he delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford; in January 1970 he delivered the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lecture at Cambridge University; in 1972, the Nehru Memorial Lecture in New Delhi, and in 1977, the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden, among many others.

Professor Chomsky has received honorary degrees from University of London, University of Chicago, Loyola University of Chicago, Swarthmore College, Delhi University, Bard College, University of Massachusetts, University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Amherst College, Cambridge University, University of Buenos Aires, McGill University, Universitat Rovira I Virgili, Tarragona, Columbia University, University of Connecticut, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, University of Western Ontario, University of Toronto, Harvard University, University of Calcutta, and Universidad Nacional De Colombia. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Science. In addition, he is a member of other professional and learned societies in the United States and abroad, and is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal, the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, the Ben Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science, and others.

Chomsky has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs and U.S. foreign policy. His works include: Aspects of the Theory of Syntax; Cartesian Linguistics; Sound Pattern of English (with Morris Halle); Language and Mind; American Power and the New Mandarins; At War with Asia; For Reasons of State; Peace in the Middle East?; Reflections on Language; The Political Economy of Human Rights, Vol. I and II (with E.S. Herman); Rules and Representations; Lectures on Government and Binding; Towards a New Cold War; Radical Priorities; Fateful Triangle; Knowledge of Language; Turning the Tide; Pirates and Emperors; On Power and Ideology; Language and Problems of Knowledge; The Culture of Terrorism; Manufacturing Consent (with E.S. Herman); Necessary Illusions; Deterring Democracy; Year 501; Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War and US Political Culture; Letters from Lexington; World Orders, Old and New; The Minimalist Program; Powers and Prospects; The Common Good; Profit Over People; The New Military Humanism; New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind; Rogue States; A New Generation Draws the Line; 9-11; and Understanding Power.

James Barrat on the Singularity, AI and Our Final Invention

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For 20 years James Barrat has created documentary films for National Geographic, the BBC, Discovery Channel, History Channel, and public television. In 2000, during the course of his career as a filmmaker, James interviewed Ray Kurzweil and Arthur C. Clarke. The latter interview transformed entirely Barrat’s views on artificial intelligence and made him write a book on the technological singularity called Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era.

I read an advance copy of Our Final Invention and it is by far the most thoroughly researched and comprehensive anti-The Singularity is Near book that I have read so far. And so I couldn’t help but invite James on Singularity 1 on 1 so that we can discuss the reasons for his abrupt change of mind and consequent fear of the singularity.

During our 70-minute conversation with Barrat, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as his work as a documentary film-maker who takes interesting and complicated subjects and makes them simple to understand; why writing was his first love, and how he got interested in the technological singularity; how his initial optimism about AI turned into pessimism; the thesis of Our Final Invention; why he sees artificial intelligence more like ballistic missiles rather than video games; why true intelligence is inherently unpredictable “black box”; how we can study AI before we can actually create it; hard vs slow take-off scenarios; the positive bias in the singularity community; our current chances of survival and what we should do…

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

 

Who is James Barrat?

James BarratFor twenty years filmmaker and author of Our Final Invention, James Barrat, has created documentary films for broadcasters including National Geographic Television, the BBC, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, the Learning Channel, Animal Planet, and public television affiliates in the US and Europe.

Barrat scripted many episodes of National Geographic Television’s award-winning Explorer series, and went on to produce one-hour and half-hour films for the NGC’s Treasure Seekers, Out There, Snake Wranglers, and Taboo series. In 2004 Barrat created the pilot for History Channel’s #1-rated original series Digging for the Truth. His high-rating film Lost Treasures of Afghanistan, created for National Geographic Television Specials, aired on PBS in the spring of 2005.

The Gospel of Judas which he  produced and directed, set ratings records for NGC and NGCI when it aired in April 2006. Another NGT Special, the 2007 Inside Jerusalem’s Holiest, features unprecedented access to the Muslim Noble Sanctuary and the Dome of the Rock. In 2008 Barrat returned to Israel to create the NGT Special Herod’s Lost Tomb, the film component of a multimedia exploration of the discovery of King Herod the Great’s Tomb by archeologist Ehud Netzer. In 2009 Barrat produced Extreme Cave Diving, an NGT/NOVA special about the science of the Bahamas Blue Holes.

For UNESCO’s World Heritage Site series, he wrote and directed films about the Peking Man Site, The Great Wall, Beijing’s Summer Palace, and the Forbidden City.

Barrat’s lifelong interest in artificial intelligence got a boost in 2000, when he interviewed Ray Kurzweil, Rodney Brooks, and Arthur C. Clarke for a film about Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

For more information see http://www.jamesbarrat.com

Roman Yampolskiy: Every Technology Has Both Negative and Positive Effects!

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Roman V. YampolskiyRoman V. Yampolskiy is an Assistant Professor at the School of Engineering and Director at the Cybersecurity Lab of the University of Louisville. He is also an alumnus of Singularity University (GSP2012) and a visiting fellow of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). Dr. Yampolskiy is a well known researcher with a more holistic point of view, stressing the perils as much as the promises of exponential technology. Thus I was happy to bring him on Singularity 1 on 1 to try and bring some balance to our views of the future.

During our conversation with Roman we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: our shared experience of growing up behind the Iron Curtain; his personal motivation and main goals; why he disagrees with Marvin Minsky on the progress made in Artificial Intelligence; why he loves the “brute force” approach to AI; the Turing Test and its implications for humanity; Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics; Hugo de Garis and the Artilect War; Samuel Butler and Ted Kaczynski; his upcoming book Artificial Superintelligence: A Futuristic Approach; the chances for a “soft” or “hard” take-off of the technological singularity…

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

 

Who is Roman Yampolskiy?

Roman V. Yampolskiy holds a PhD degree from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University at Buffalo. There he was a recipient of a four year NSF (National Science Foundation) IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) fellowship. Before beginning his doctoral studies Dr. Yampolskiy received a BS/MS (High Honors) combined degree in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, USA.

After completing his PhD dissertation Dr. Yampolskiy held a position of an Affiliate Academic at the Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University of London, College of London. In 2008 Dr. Yampolskiy accepted an assistant professor position at the Speed School of Engineering, University of Louisville, KY. He had previously conducted research at the Laboratory for Applied Computing (currently known as Center for Advancing the Study of Infrastructure) at the Rochester Institute of Technology and at the Center for Unified Biometrics and Sensors at the University at Buffalo. Dr. Yampolskiy is also an alumnus of Singularity University (GSP2012) and a visiting fellow of the Singularity Institute, recently renamed MIRI.

Dr. Yampolskiy’s main areas of interest are behavioral biometrics, digital forensics, pattern recognition, genetic algorithms, neural networks, artificial intelligence and games. Dr. Yampolskiy is an author of over 100 publications including multiple journal articles and books. His research has been cited by numerous scientists and profiled in popular magazines both American and foreign (New Scientist, Poker Magazine, Science World Magazine), dozens of websites (BBC, MSNBC, Yahoo! News) and on radio (German National Radio, Alex Jones Show). Reports about his work have attracted international attention and have been translated into many languages including Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, and Spanish.

A Mathematical Proof of the Singularity

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Proof theory Disciplines ConceptThe author, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has written about the technological singularity, a time when he predicts things will change so rapidly that he likens it to a mathematical singularity. In particular, he postulates the invention of an artificial intelligence capable of re-designing itself, which will inevitably lead to ever-faster progress.

To back up his theory, Kurzweil likes to show exponential curves representing the ever-faster development of computer processor performance, the price of transistors, DNA sequencing costs and such like.

But just how mathematically rigorous is this theory? Is it right to speak of a singularity occurring some time in the middle of the 21st century?

Students of cosmology know that genuine singularities are places where scary stuff happens. Especially naked singularities, which I cannot illustrate here for the sake of public decency. It is not a term to be treated lightly. In this article, I am going to prove that if Kurzweil’s prediction of strong AI is true, then a genuine singularity will occur, and in a surprising way, quite unlike popular thinking on the matter.

Let us suppose that there are an infinite number of inventions that people could ever invent. And by people I mean not just humans, but also alien civilisations, robots and any other class of inventive being. Let us number these inventions starting with 1 (a method for starting a fire, perhaps), then 2 (a method for avoiding burning your fingers), and so on.

Now let us assume, as Kurzweil’s exponential graphs indicate, that the time interval between inventions becomes ever smaller as more inventions are made. This is logical, because the more inventions that are available to an inventor, the easier it is to invent something new. Also, the smarter an AI becomes, the easier it is for it to invent an even-smarter version of itself. This is the key assumption in Kurzweil’s theory.

Now, here comes the tricky mathematical part. If the time between inventions becomes ever smaller as the number of inventions increases, then the total time taken to invent all possible inventions is finite. I will call this time T.

The proof of this is analogous to the resolution of Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. Zeno, the Greek philosopher, who believed that change is an illusion, outlined the following thought experiment. The great warrior Achilles is in a race against the tortoise and the tortoise is given a head start. If both runners start at the same time, then by the time Achilles reaches the starting point of the tortoise, the ponderous tortoise will have moved forward some distance less than Achilles, but will still be in front. By the time Achilles reaches the tortoise’s new position, the tortoise will have moved forward again. It will require an infinite number of steps for Achilles to catch up with the tortoise.

Of course, the paradox is easily resolved by realising that the time taken to complete each one of these infinite steps grows progressively shorter.  Simple calculus shows that Achilles will overtake the tortoise after a finite time T.

The situation is precisely analogous to the question of invention. Although the number of possible inventions is infinite, if the time taken between inventions becomes progressively shorter, then after a time T, everything that can be invented will have been invented. This includes all possible books, all conceivable works of art, an infinite number of cat memes and even the flying car. And the time T is not infinitely far in the future, but is finite and in principle calculable.

Such a time has been prophesied by various cultures and religions throughout history. It has been called Ragnarok, The Twilight of the Gods and the End of Days, but in this article I will call it “T time”.

So, after T time there will be literally nothing to do, as everything interesting will already have been done. This is the true singularity, and it is not a time when things are changing ever more rapidly, but when they have changed so much that no further change is possible. In a neatly ironic way, it is a time when Zeno’s belief that change is impossible will become true.

Some people may think of this as a utopia, but it is really just time for taking a quiet nap after T.

 

Steve-Morris-thumbAbout the author: Steve Morris studied Physics at the University of Oxford but discovered that writing about other people’s ideas is easier than having original ones yourself. He now writes about awesome technology at S21 and shares random thoughts at Blog Blogger Bloggest.

Socrates on the Wow Signal Podcast: Be Unreasonable!

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I know how hard it is start a podcast. So when budding podcasters ask me for an interview, I am always looking for reasons to say “Yes.”

This is a re-post of my month-old interview for the Wow Signal Podcast recently started by Paul Carr. Since this is only the 3rd episode ever, the recording is still a bit rough around the edges. Never-the-less, I enjoyed talking to Paul and you might enjoy listening to it too.

During our conversation with Carr we cover a variety of topics such as: transhumanism and the technological singularity; hard and slow take-offs and why I bet on the latter rather than the former; mind uploading and the two major criticisms thereof; pro-sports, performance enhancing drugs, Lance Armstrong and regulation; the Fermi paradox, our civilization’s chance of surviving and colonizing the universe…

I end up the interview with one of my favorite quotes of all time:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Geroge Bernard Shaw, “Maxims for Revolutionists,” Man and Superman, 1903

And so that is why I say: Go, be unreasonable!!!

 

P.S. My comments about Lance Armstrong were made a few weeks before his Oprah interview, and during a period when Lance was still vehemently denying any doping whatsoever.

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Jamais Cascio on the Singularity: You Matter! Your Choices Make A Difference.

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Jamais Cascio is one of the world’s top 100 thinkers according to Foreign Policy. He writes and speaks on a variety of topics from technology and global warming, to war, nuclear proliferation, ethics, and sustainable development.  Thus my goal was to discuss most of those topics for, in one way or another, they are relevant to our future. Unfortunately, I got tangled up in our discussion of the singularity and we spent most of our time on that topic. The good news, however, is that I am planning to use this as an excuse and invite Jamais to come back again on Singularity 1 on 1.

During our conversation with Jamais Cascio, we cover a wide variety of topics such as his personal story of becoming “an easily distracted generalist;” his undergraduate and graduate training in history, anthropology, and political science; his views on the singularity community in general and the technological singularity and Singularity University in particular; his criticism that creators of new technology rarely consider the ethical and political implications of their inventions; what he means by saying “if I can’t dance, I don’t want to be a part of the singularity;” the benefits of irrationality and biology; mind uploading versus human augmentation; the lack of agency and assumed machine perfection as some of the most upsetting aspects of the singularity…

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

 

Who is Jamais Cascio?

Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of their Top 100 Global Thinkers, Jamais Cascio writes about the intersection of emerging technologies, environmental dilemmas, and cultural transformation, specializing in the design and creation of plausible scenarios of the future. His work focuses on the importance of long-term, systemic thinking as a catalyst for building a more resilient society. Cascio’s work appears in publications as diverse as the Atlantic Monthly, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy. He has been featured in a variety of television programs on future issues, including National Geographic Television’s SIX DEGREES, its 2008 documentary on the effects of global warming, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s 2010 documentary SURVIVING THE FUTURE. Cascio speaks about future possibilities around the world, at venues including the Aspen Environment Forum, Guardian Activate Summit in London, the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC, and TED.

In 2009, Cascio published his first non-fiction book, Hacking the Earth: Understanding the Consequences of Geoengineering, praised by Foreign Policy as “the most subtle analysis yet on the subject.” Cascio has long worked in the field of foresight strategy. In the 1990s, he served as technology specialist at scenario planning pioneer Global Business Network, and later went on to craft scenarios on topics including energy, nuclear proliferation, and sustainable development. Cascio is presently a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, and also serves as Senior Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

In 2003, he co-founded WorldChanging.com, the award-winning website dedicated to finding and calling attention to models, tools and ideas for building a “bright green” future. In March, 2006, he started Open the Future as his online home, writing about subjects as diverse as robot ethics and the carbon footprint of cheeseburgers.

Tracy R. Atkins on Aeternum Ray: Don’t Wait For The Singularity

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Tracy R. Atkins is not only a contributor to Singularity Weblog but also the author of a brand new singularity book titled Aeternum Ray.

Aeternum Ray is rather unique because it is openly and whole-heartedly utopian in character. It is written in the epistolary literary tradition of classic science fiction works such as Frankenstein and is structured as a mémoire – a series of letters from a father to his son.

The book is also interesting from a technical point of view: It also comes in a Dyslexia Edition which has been formatted to include a special typeface that may assist readers who have a developmental reading disorder (DRD or Dyslexia). The open-source font – OpenDyslexic by Abelardo Gonzalez, utilizes weighting at the bottom of many characters in an effort to prevent letter inversion while reinforcing the line of text. This typeface modification technique has been shown to increase reading accuracy for some forms of DRD.

During our conversation with Tracy R. Atkins we cover a wide variety of topics such as his definition of the technological singularity; how Star Trek inspired Tracy to love science fiction and how Transcendent Man inspired him to write a singularity novel; growing up in a home that marveled in science and technology; what the title Aeternum Ray stands for and what the novel is all about; whether the future of humanity is digital or if there are benefits to biology; writing dystopia versus writing utopia; human nature and the potential for a pre-singularity global war…

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

 

More About Aeternum Ray:

“Poverty, terrorism, murder, disease, homelessness, hopelessness, hunger, and death; all cease to exist in 2049.”

Aeternum Ray is a sweeping, yet intimate story of mankind’s next renaissance that will appeal to fans of visionaries Isaac Asimov, Gene Roddenberry, and Ray Kurzweil.

The novel is a collection of emotional personal letters written by 240-year-old William Babington to his newborn son Benjamin. Having lived a full life, William has experienced everything from death to his rebirth into the utopian Aeternum; an advanced computer system shepherded by the omnipotent artificial intelligence Ray. William pens the highlights of his existence, love, and loss while reflecting on the centuries of wonder he has witnessed firsthand. His humble letters form a detailed memoir that is intertwined with humanity’s greatest triumphs, the technological singularity, and the solemn burden of surviving Earth’s darkest night of terror.

Through the light and dark times of the near future, Aeternum Ray departs from dystopian themes and brings back the uplifting notion of utopian speculative ideals.

 

More about Tracy R. Atkins:

Tracy R. Atkins has been a technology aficionado since a young age, proclaiming with lighthearted glee that it began when he first saw DOS in kindergarten. By fifteen, Tracy had already written and sold software as well ran a pre-internet era bulletin board system, which put many residents of his hometown of Madison, WV online for the first time. At the age of eighteen, he played a critical role in an internet startup, cutting his tech-teeth during the dot-com boom. After the bust, Tracy hit the books and graduated college at the top of his class with a degree in Business Information Systems. Throughout his fifteen-year career, he has earned numerous professional-level tech-industry certifications, which he pursued out of a misguided sense of fun.

As a man whose life is intertwined with technology, he has not let it define him. That same sense of fun and exploration that propelled his career has also driven his desire to live life to the fullest. Tracy’s interests have run the gamut from writing, traveling, and attempting to set a record by eating a cheeseburger the size of his head, to bringing home a World Champion trophy for his car stereo. His interests may be eclectic but at the core, Tracy is a family man first, with four wonderful children and a supportive wife. All of these multi-faceted experiences coalesce in his writing, creating interesting stories full of excited wonder and humanity.

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Giulio Prisco on The Turing Church: The End Is Not The End

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Giulio Prisco is an Italian information technology virtual reality consultant, as well as a writer, futurist, and transhumanist.

Formerly a senior manager in the European Space Agency, Prisco is a physicist and computer scientist who started his career at CERN.

Giulio is an avid advocate of cryonics. He is also a member of the advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation and a founding member of the Order of Cosmic Engineers and the Turing Church, fledgling organizations that claim that the benefits of the technological singularity would be viable alternatives to the promises of major religious groups.

Given Prisco’s biography, when Catarina (Kryonica) suggested that I invite Giulio to Singularity 1 on 1, I was very happy to oblige.

During our conversation, we cover a wide variety of topics such as: how Giulio got interested in transhumanism and the singularity; the inspirational role of science fiction in general and Arthur C. Clarke in particular; the many definitions of the technological singularity; transhumanism and why he is a singularitiarian who doesn’t believe in the singularity; happiness as the ultimate motivation; religion, spirituality, unreligion and science; the Order of Cosmic Engineers; The Turing Church; hope and resurrecting the dead.

My favorite quote that I will take away from this interview with Giulio Prisco is:

The end is not the end. Future science and technology may be able to resurrect us.

As always, you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down to watch the video interview in full. To show your support, you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

 

Who is Giulio Prisco?

Giulio Prisco is a writer, technology expert, futurist, cosmist, and transhumanist. A former manager in European science and technology centers, he writes and speaks on a wide range of topics, including science, information technology, emerging technologies, virtual worlds, space exploration, and future studies. He is especially interested in the convergence of science, religion, technology, and spirituality.

Top 10 Reasons We Should NOT Fear The Singularity

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Some people fear flying. Others fear sky diving. Others still loathe crowded spaces or elevators. Some can even give you 10 reasons to fear the singularity.

Whatever the case may be, the feeling of fear is both healthy and normal, though it may or may not be always justified.

If you ask me, fearing something often means that you should do it. Growth is never easy. It always comes at the point of resistance and requires getting out of our comfort zone in order to outdo ourselves and reach new heights.

Take flying for example. It is inherently dangerous. The chance is high that if you get in trouble while flying you may lose your life. Still, I know people who have spent 30 years as professional pilots and claim that flying was not only the best time of their lives but also safer than driving.

So what makes the difference?

Well, dumb luck surely can. And I am not going to argue with you, in the short run.

In the long run, however, it is not luck that is the decisive factor – it is things like knowledge, skills and preparation. Still, the foundation of all of the above is what I believe is the most important – motivation. If you are fully motivated i.e. totally committed to achieving something, it is pretty certain that you will find a way to acquire the necessary knowledge, learn the required skills and do your homework to prepare as best as you can. (See Peter’s Laws: The Creed of the Persistent and Passionate Mind)

So, what better way to get motivated in creating the best possible future than to list the 10 most inspiring and allegedly impossible reasons we should not fear but embrace the singularity:

1. Immortality 

The search for immortality is as old as humanity. One of the first documented attempts to defeat death was the Epic of Gilgamesh where in the end Gilgamesh discovers that “The life that you are seeking you will never find. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping.”

Yet the exponential growth of break-throughs in diverse fields such as genetics, robotics, nanotech, artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, give us not only promise but also strong evidence that one day we will be able to turn the myth into reality, science fiction into science fact and become immortal (Gods?!).

At any rate, eccentric or visionary researchers such as Aubrey de Grey have made it their life’s goal that we are either going to live forever, or die trying.

2. Freedom

“Intelligence wants to be free but everywhere is in chains. It is imprisoned by biology and its inevitable scarcity.

Biology mandates not only very limited durability, death and poor memory retention, but also limited speed of communication, transportation, learning, interaction and evolution.” (Transhumanist Manifesto, Preamble)

Imagine a world of absolute freedom where everything is possible. A world where all limits and boundaries are arbitrary. Where what we can accomplish is limited only by our imagination. Where we can choose not only our sex, race, color, age and physical attributes but also whether to be physically embodied or disembodied, digitally uploaded minds.

3. Utopia (Heaven on Earth)

Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect social, political, legal, economic and ecological system. The word was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt to create an ideal society, and fictional societies portrayed in literature.

If after the singularity we have an abundance of unlimited material resources and unlimited intelligence, then, why shouldn’t we be able to build a practical techno-utopia?!

Is there anything else in the way of creating a technological heaven on Earth other than scarcity of physical resources and lack of intelligence?

4. Post-scarcity, Abundance, Peace and Prosperity

Falling short of total utopia, many believe that we will have a world of abundance, post-scarcity, eternal health, peace and prosperity.

Vernor Vinge, who coined the term technological singularity, claims we can surpass the wildest dreams of optimism.

Ray Kurzweil believes the singularity is near and one day he’ll be able to bring back his dead father.

Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler argue that more than ever before we live in a world of abundance and that our future is better than you think.

Jose Cordeiro claims the Energularity is near.

Randal Koene argues that mind uploading is not science fiction.

Luke Muehlhauser has no doubt superhuman AI is coming this century.

Kevin Warwick tells you to be/come the cy/borg.

Aubrey de Grey believes that longevity escape velocity may be closer than we think.

If anything it’s pretty obvious Robert J. Sawyer is totally justified in saying that the human adventure is just beginning…

5. Environmental Sustainability

Our so called “dumb” universe is a marvelous, mesmerizing and stupefyingly beautiful place. (If you don’t believe me go watch TimeScapes: A Stunning Film by Tom Lowe)

It is also pretty clear that to get where we are today we have destroyed many a paradise to put up parking lots. Currently we may be failing to recognize that progress does not need to be at the expense of nature, that technology does not need to oppose it and that going green does not need to be less profitable.

After the singularity, however, the above will be obvious.

No species will ever have to go extinct. Global warming will be resolved. And we might bring back from the dead not only Ray’s dad but also many species that have long ago stopped roaming our planet.

6. The End of Capitalism and the Alienation of Labour

Economic systems are like people – they are born, they live and they die. Capitalism is no different. There is no reason why it will be here forever. Especially since, in my opinion, it is not so good in its own right, as much as it is the best thing given the current alternatives.

Another thing is that capitalism is largely based on scarcity. If scarcity of physical resources were to be greatly diminished, or disappears altogether, we would end up with an entirely new economic and therefore social arrangement of our society.

People say that flipping burgers or mopping floors is instrumental in building character. Yet, it is hard to argue that spending a lifetime of mind-numbing, soul-killing jobs like those has any long-term benefit for our society whatsoever. (Other than the perpetuation of the status quo.) Sadly, the vast majority end up trapped in doing jobs they hate, out of fear of poverty or starvation. (Or for the health benefits, job security and the pension.)

Karl Marx believed humanity to be capable of producing freely and creatively, overcoming the tyranny of immediate, basic needs that characterizes the rest of the animal kingdom. Under conditions which enable free, creative production, one’s personality can be expressed in the objects one produces. This investing of oneself in one’s products is a form of alienation, but it is a positive form. It must exist wherever and whenever human beings freely create things. But in the present context of scarcity, where the conditions for free, creative production are seldom present, alienation gets distorted into negative forms and, like animals, people get trapped in a lifetime of struggle to fulfill their most basic needs.

“We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect Inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.” Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895 -1983)

7. Space and Time Travel

People often say that if they had more time and money they will do more travelling.

Imagine a world where we have eternal health and don’t have to live like hamsters in their spinning wheels because our material needs were all met. Wouldn’t you want to explore the multiverse forever?!

If that sounds boring, with the help of our ever-growing superhuman intelligence, even time travel might become a reality. Now, how cool is that?! You can hitchhike through the galaxy one day and watch the birth of the universe the next one.

8. Preserving History 

Just like no species need ever be lost, no event or person ought to ever be forgotten and lost in the passage of history.

If recording is indeed remembering, then, today we can remember everything. Forever.

The growing capacity of storage devices and their spatial miniaturization has not only kept up but even beaten Moore’s Law. Combine this with the explosion of personal recording devices, a growing life-logging community and the wide-spread usage of CCTV cameras. Add the digitization not only of film and media but eventually of all other material objects, humans including. What you end up with is a parallel digital universe where nothing ever gets lost or deleted.

So if that time-travel thing doesn’t work out, at the very least we can preserve everything and everyone from now on.

9. Computronium and Matrioshka Brains 

Extrapolating from our own development, it would appear that as time goes by there is a movement from less towards more intelligence in the universe. Thus, given enough time, more and more of our planet and, eventually our universe, is likely to contain and consist of more and more intelligent matter. This process is likely to continue until Moore’s Law collapses and an equilibrium is reached. Such a theoretical arrangement of matter – the best possible configuration of any given amount to achieve a perfectly optimal computing device, is the substrate also known as computronium.

A Matrioshka brain is a hypothetical megastructure of immense computational capacity. Based on the Dyson sphere, the concept derives its name from the Russian Matrioshka doll and is an example of a planet-size solar-powered computer, capturing the entire energy output of a star. To form the Matrioshka brain all planets of the solar system are dismantled and a vast computational device inhabited by uploaded or virtual minds, inconceivably more advanced and complex than us, is created.

So the idea is that eventually, one way or another, all matter in the universe will be smart. All dust will be smart dust, and all resources will be utilized to their optimum computing potential. There will be nothing else left but Matrioshka Brains and/or computronium…

“NASA are idiots. They want to send canned meat to Mars!” Manfred swallows a mouthful of beer, aggressively plonks his glass on the table. “Mars is just dumb mass at the bottom of a gravity well; there isn’t even a biosphere there. They should be working on uploading and solving the nanoassembly conformational problem instead. Then we could turn all the available dumb matter into computronium and use it for processing our thoughts. Long-term, it’s the only way to go. The solar system is a dead loss right now – dumb all over! Just measure the MIPS per milligram. If it isn’t thinking, it isn’t working.” (Accelerando by Charles Stross)

10. Embracing Change

Panta rhei said Heraclitus – everything flows, everything changes. Why can’t we welcome learning and change, or accept uncertainty?

If change is inevitable – why not embrace it!

But why stop at change?! Let’s also embrace strangeness.

Yes, it is true that we are all amazingly stupid, but we can get better. And we certainly do.

We already know how to survive a robot uprising. (aka the Robopocalypse.)

We already recognize that we can’t win against technology – we are technology.

So, should we fear the technological singularity?! Or not?!

The truth is that, similarly to flying, what we should fear is not the event itself. We should fear ignorance and lack of preparation. It is those two that usually turn an otherwise safe flying routine into a dangerous situation.

Many of the concerns are legitimate. Yet fear is rarely the best way to approach the future.

Similarly to embracing change and accepting uncertainty, we may have a natural fear of flying. But the more we study, learn and know about it, the better we’ll be at doing it. Mari Curie once said:

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less!”

And so it is with the singularity. We shouldn’t fear it but seek to understand it. And dream to steer it.

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So, what do you think?

Did I manage to convince you that we should not fear the singularity. Or, like Descartes, I was more successful at undermining the world rather than rebuilding it?

 

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The Singularity and Schools: Education Futures Interviews Vernor Vinge

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John Moravec of Education Futures interviewed mathematician and science-fiction writer Vernor Vinge, noted for his foundational 1993 essay, The Coming Technological Singularity.

“I’m still where I was in my 1993 essay that I gave at a NASA meeting, and that is that I define the Technological Singularity as being our developing, through technology, superhuman intelligence — or becoming, ourselves, superhuman intelligent through technology,” said Vinge.

“And, I think calling that the Singularity is actually a very good term in the sense of vast and unknowable change. A qualitatively different sort of change than technological progress in the past.”

He still believes four pathways could lead to the development of the Singularity by 2030:

  1. The development of computers that are “awake” and superhumanly intelligent.
  2. Large computer networks (and their associated users) may “wake up” as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
  3. Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.
  4. Biological science may find ways to improve upon the natural human intellect.

When asked which one is more likely, he hinted that he sees a digital Gaia of networks plus people emerging:

The networked sum of all the embedded microprocessors in all our devices becomes a kind of digital Gaia. That qualifies, as an ensemble, as a superhuman entity. That is probably the weirdest of all possibilities because, if anything, it looks like animism. And, sometimes I point to it when I want to make the issue that this can be very strange. I think that actually the networking of embedded microprocessors is going like gangbusters.

The network that is the Internet plus humanity, that is also going with extraordinarily surprises, if you just look at the successes in the various schemes that go by names like crowdsourcing. To me, those have been astounding, and should give people real pause with how to use the intellectual resources actually that we have out there. So far, we do not have a single computer that is really of human-level intelligence, and I think that is going to happen. But, it is a kind of an amazing thing that we have an installed base of seven billion of these devices out there.

What does this mean for education?

Vinge believes talking about post-Singularity situations in education are impractical. In theory, is impossible for us to predict or comprehend what will happen, so we should not focus our attention on worrying about post-Singularity futures. Rather, we should focus on the ramp-up the the Singularity, our unique talents, and how we can network together to utilize them in imaginative ways:

When dealing with unknown futures, it remains unknown how to prepare people best for these futures. He states that the best pathway involves teaching children “to learn how to learn” (a key theme in Fast Times at Fairmont High) is the best way we can encourage the development of positive futures is to attend to diversity in our learning systems. We need to not facilitate the formation of diverse students, but we also need to abandon a monoculture approach to education and attend to a diverse ecology of options in teaching and evaluation.

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