Do I believe in the "Singularity"?

1/7/2010: On any measure, human progress is non-linear. Productivity, prosperity, consumption, and most importantly (according to people who are obsessed with the future) computing power are on exponential courses upward. The singularity is just an idea with a cult following that comes out of this reality. It postulates that at some point in the near future technology will be advancing so quickly that it will spawn a new kind of intelligence will arise that we currently do not even have the conceptual tools to think about. Maybe something like a supercomputer that can do so many calculations in an instant that it can be reading the entire internet simultaneously. And with the rise of things like twitter perhaps also be in touch with every human in real time as well (a big part of the idea is that different technologies will all converge on each other) not to mention things like gps installed in every thing ever touched by a person. There is no reason that a tracking device can't be made to be as small as to be measured in atoms, and at that point you could put one on everything. A computer that fast and with that much data would have predictive ability. Or maybe its simpler than that. Maybe someone invents a model that can predict molecular randomness by incorporating new data in real time. You could build into the model an ever increasing "closed system" and be very close to actually proving cosmic determinism and having access to "God's" plan for how every atom is going to be bouncing off every other.

Before I talk about whether this is going to happen or not, some other guesses at how it might come to be:

- Its not implausible that we learn how to manipulate matter to the point where we can just make things like how they make food in Star Trek. The history of mankind (and all life) is the history of scarcity. What happens when all of a sudden everything becomes free? Also, is this an economist's dream or nightmare?

- Wal-mart. Not joking. They have already proved that specialization is not necessary for optimization, especially if economies of scale apply. They have transcended retail by being the best at things they have no business being the best at: transportation, banking, energy efficiency, information systems, etc. What if some future company becomes the best at everything to the point where we all work for it and all of sudden everyone's self-interest becomes aligned?

-Transaction costs go to zero. {[First, if you haven't yet, read/watch this article about credit cards and how currently perverse incentives are causing the opposite of price competition. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/05visa.html?em ]} The internet has already started with this, but there is a big difference between paying micro-cents and actual zero. Actual zero means that the market with a capital M is perfectly efficient. All resources are being maximized.

This speculative nonsense has a couple of things going for it:

- After the singularity, or perhaps even the cause of it, people are going to have computers integrated into their nervous systems. That's pretty fucking graphix. (also, if you are late to the party, graphix is the new lazers.

- Even if it doesn't ever happen, its pretty fun to think about and a reason to pay attention and a reason to try to piece things together. There is so much going on right now in medicine, energy, and especially information technology and how everything interacts is pretty unknown.

- Unlike other things, there doesn't seem to be anything that is cyclical about the trajectory of technological advance. After human beings realized that writing shit down was awesome and figured out how to do it, good ideas rarely got lost and forgotten and we have only really moved forward.

On the other hand:

-People, for whatever reason, have the tendency to categorize as a difference in kind rather than a difference in degree. (See: Humans/Language, Humans/Soul, Christianity/Islam, etc) History just shows us going up a graph. Its a steep slope, sure, by why would anyone come to the conclusion we are going to do anything besides stay on the track we have been on?

-If this was a real thing, then aliens would be here already. Its kind of like the proof that time travel doesn't exist. If it did, then time travelers from the future would have been here. If the singularity was a phenomena, it would have been replicated on a planet somewhere in our infinite universe and would have probably just colonized everything under its all-knowing power.

- Is it even something we should be excited about? For instance, if I knew for a fact that this was my last year pre-singularity, I would want to make as many bad decisions as possible while i still could.

Part Two: Predictions (because they are fun)

Sue got really mad at Ira Glass because he promised real predictions and then wimped out. Here are some good ones:

-In our lifetime:

1. Power will become basically free through the process of fusion. Once we get a handle on how to do the simplest kinds, we are going to learn how to use bigger and bigger atomic "fuel" to make the process work. 5 percent chance that cold fusion ever happens.

2. India and Pakistan will engage in atomic warfare over water, specially the damming of the Indus river. Water will be the currency of the next century, like oil was the currency of the past one.

3. Magnets will see a resurgence in importance, specifically electro-magnets. For all of our advances, humans still primarily manipulate our environs using the crappiest of the forces: gravity or mechanical means usually. Gravity a weak force you say? Think about it like this: a magnet the size of a pinhead can hold a paper clip when the entire planet is pulling on it in the other direction.

4. A person born in our lifetime will live to be 500 years old.

5. "Rights", as currently understood, will be given to non-humans, and actually understood, enforced, and celebrated as our rights are. My guess is only the most intelligent species at first, but soon after, most creatures we are currently using as protein factories.

6. Sleep will be "solved" and become obsolete. If any of us live long enough, we will have to tell little ones about the good old days and what sleeping every day was like.

In the next few years:

1. Not only gay marriage, but comprehensive change in the treatment of non-traditional members of the sex and gender spectrum including trans-genders. This includes a shift in how doctors treat babies born "in the middle", which will of course lead to more people growing up with a complicated gender identity and therefore more acceptance, understanding, tolerance, etc. but that will take a generation obviously.

2. Google will do something really really evil and become a bad guy. On the other hand, the good guys will win about the internet on issues such as: net neutrality, the copyfight, access in the third world and oppressed places, china specifically.

3. Tobacco will become illegal somewhere (somewhere real too). Not just smoking it. It will be illegal to grow, possess, sell, everything. GMOs too.

4. At least five different regions of the world will learn the lesson of the EU and incorporate in a similar way. This is one is half cheating, because some Arab states are already doing this, but southeast Asia, south America, northern Africa, and poor soviet block countries could also benefit from "joining a union" including currency consolidation.

5. Someone in my family will die or get married. I will be judged for not giving a shit either way.