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farmgirl1146 poked me because I haven't posted in a while, so here is some classic Jack ranting for you...)
Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the integrated circuit. In that time we have gone from five discrete components on chip (including transistors, capacitors, and resistors) to over a billion transistors alone. That is pushing nine orders of magnitude in five decades!
Can you imagine your life without IC's? Electronics technology not progressing past vacuum tubes or, at the best, top-hat transistors? Basically we would still be operating at a 1950's level: No MP3 players. No cellular phones. No personal computers. No Internet. No auto-sensing stoplights. And it doesn't stop there! Nearly everything about our lives and modern culture has been touched by microchips somehow, somewhere.
The truth is that chips are in nearly everything. They are pervasive almost beyond comprehension. They don't just provide cheap consumer products, they lower the cost of everything in our economy; from energy production, to manufacturing, to business management, to statistics gathering, to shipping, to beyond. They make our lives better, albeit somewhat more complex. They make our lives longer, via better drugs and medical techniques not previously available. They even enable lifestyles that would be impossible without them. (Some might argue this isn't a benefit, but the point stands.)
All this in fifty years. To really get a feel for this telescoping of technological windows you need to think historically: We took tens of thousands of years to go from writing on clay tablets to printing on lead type. We took thousands of years to go from water-wheels to steam engines. We took hundreds of years to go from a basic understanding of chemical reactions to making dyes and epoxies from coal and oil. Each of these leaps was shorter than the previous. All of them together took us only to the Industrial Revolution. After that we moved into the Atomic Age within seventy years and to Internet Time within fifty.
And only ten years from that to you reading this...
The timescale keeps compressing and the technology moves ahead by orders of magnitude at each historical quantum level. What is the next step? Today, at work, I emailed around a link to a Wired article about the anniversary of the IC, the same one that I link to at the beginning of this essay. In one of the responses I was asked "Can you imagine 50 years from now?"
I had to answer that I couldn't imagine 50 years from now. Hell, if Vernor Vinge is right I can't imagine it by definition!
But, you know what? I think it might be something like this clip om the movie “Waking Life”, where real-life chemist Eamonn Healy is ranting about 'Telescopic Evolution':
farmgirl1146 poked me because I haven't posted in a while, so here is some classic Jack ranting for you...)Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the integrated circuit. In that time we have gone from five discrete components on chip (including transistors, capacitors, and resistors) to over a billion transistors alone. That is pushing nine orders of magnitude in five decades! Can you imagine your life without IC's? Electronics technology not progressing past vacuum tubes or, at the best, top-hat transistors? Basically we would still be operating at a 1950's level: No MP3 players. No cellular phones. No personal computers. No Internet. No auto-sensing stoplights. And it doesn't stop there! Nearly everything about our lives and modern culture has been touched by microchips somehow, somewhere.
The truth is that chips are in nearly everything. They are pervasive almost beyond comprehension. They don't just provide cheap consumer products, they lower the cost of everything in our economy; from energy production, to manufacturing, to business management, to statistics gathering, to shipping, to beyond. They make our lives better, albeit somewhat more complex. They make our lives longer, via better drugs and medical techniques not previously available. They even enable lifestyles that would be impossible without them. (Some might argue this isn't a benefit, but the point stands.)All this in fifty years. To really get a feel for this telescoping of technological windows you need to think historically: We took tens of thousands of years to go from writing on clay tablets to printing on lead type. We took thousands of years to go from water-wheels to steam engines. We took hundreds of years to go from a basic understanding of chemical reactions to making dyes and epoxies from coal and oil. Each of these leaps was shorter than the previous. All of them together took us only to the Industrial Revolution. After that we moved into the Atomic Age within seventy years and to Internet Time within fifty.
And only ten years from that to you reading this...
The timescale keeps compressing and the technology moves ahead by orders of magnitude at each historical quantum level. What is the next step? Today, at work, I emailed around a link to a Wired article about the anniversary of the IC, the same one that I link to at the beginning of this essay. In one of the responses I was asked "Can you imagine 50 years from now?"
I had to answer that I couldn't imagine 50 years from now. Hell, if Vernor Vinge is right I can't imagine it by definition!
But, you know what? I think it might be something like this clip om the movie “Waking Life”, where real-life chemist Eamonn Healy is ranting about 'Telescopic Evolution':
Phil Bowermaster has a Declaration of Singularity.
There are plenty of Singularity doubters out there. Some think we won't last long enough. Others simply figure the robots aint gonna take over, period.
The common thread among all the deniers appears to be a misunderstanding of what a Technological Singularity really means. For what it's worth, you often find the same problem on the other side of the fence. Whether stone denier or rabid believer, the argument revolves around the possibility of a rapture of the nerds scenario.
There are two problems with this:
Besides all that, there is a significant chance there won't be a Technological Singularity at all. The main factor capable of triggering a Technological Singularity is the creation of an intelligence (artificial or enhanced human or other) which is both smarter than us and capable of creating something even smarter than itself. If there is some limiting factor to intelligence of which we aren't aware then future change will remain comprehensible.
Not long ago I was talking about these things withjkling and he asked me if I still believed in the Singularity. I was astounded that someone so close was under the impression that the Technological Singularity is an article of faith to me! I've never been a true believer, I am not a Singulatarian. Nor do I believe I will personally be transformed into something so close to godlike as to make the distinction meaningless. (Yes, I have hopes. I also buy the occasional lottery ticket; purchasing for a dollar the right to hope I will be rich.)
I do think that Vinge's original formulation is very likely, and likely sooner rather than later. But that is just a calculation of odds, not a personal belief. I expect there are many others with the same problem; people encouraging discussion of the Singularity, because it needs to be discussed, only to find that this makes them look like evangelists.
And that is what is wrong with both the true believers and the deniers - they think it is a binary thing, like a faith in God. It isn't. Yes, a Technological Singularity is a distinct possibility. So is a human return to the dark ages. So is a nanotech gray goo scenario or wiping out humanity with a bioweapon. What all of these are not, nor should they ever be, is a religion.
We have quite enough of that already, thank you.
The common thread among all the deniers appears to be a misunderstanding of what a Technological Singularity really means. For what it's worth, you often find the same problem on the other side of the fence. Whether stone denier or rabid believer, the argument revolves around the possibility of a rapture of the nerds scenario.
There are two problems with this:
- A 'rapture of the nerds' is not the most likely outcome of a Technological Singularity
- The whole point of invoking the mathematical concept of a Singularity is the fact we have no idea what is on the other side; by definition we cannot know
Besides all that, there is a significant chance there won't be a Technological Singularity at all. The main factor capable of triggering a Technological Singularity is the creation of an intelligence (artificial or enhanced human or other) which is both smarter than us and capable of creating something even smarter than itself. If there is some limiting factor to intelligence of which we aren't aware then future change will remain comprehensible.
Not long ago I was talking about these things with
jkling and he asked me if I still believed in the Singularity. I was astounded that someone so close was under the impression that the Technological Singularity is an article of faith to me! I've never been a true believer, I am not a Singulatarian. Nor do I believe I will personally be transformed into something so close to godlike as to make the distinction meaningless. (Yes, I have hopes. I also buy the occasional lottery ticket; purchasing for a dollar the right to hope I will be rich.)I do think that Vinge's original formulation is very likely, and likely sooner rather than later. But that is just a calculation of odds, not a personal belief. I expect there are many others with the same problem; people encouraging discussion of the Singularity, because it needs to be discussed, only to find that this makes them look like evangelists.
And that is what is wrong with both the true believers and the deniers - they think it is a binary thing, like a faith in God. It isn't. Yes, a Technological Singularity is a distinct possibility. So is a human return to the dark ages. So is a nanotech gray goo scenario or wiping out humanity with a bioweapon. What all of these are not, nor should they ever be, is a religion.
We have quite enough of that already, thank you.
There has been a lot of talk about the Fermi Paradox lately, partially sparked by George P. Dvorsky's recent essay 'The Fermi Paradox: Advanced civilizations do not…' Today Centauri Dreams follows up with a very interesting post on what we should be looking for.
I highly recommend reading both essays, but I should point out that I have my own theory to explain the Fermi Paradox.
I highly recommend reading both essays, but I should point out that I have my own theory to explain the Fermi Paradox.
Yet another narrow-cast blog, but there is a twist to this one: Infeasible is a blog dedicated to proving Transhumanism is a crock of shit.
Why bother? The author says he wants to make the world a better place:
Still, one has to admit Transhumanists and Singulatarians often make silly and stupid claims which are easy targets. And I do believe there is plenty of room for criticism. I just wish the criticism wasn't coming from someone who proves in post after post that they have little more than a surface understanding of Transhumanist thought. (In fact I even spent a little time wondering if Infeasible wasn't a lame attempt at parody.)
This shallow treatment leads one to wonder if the author even bothered to read the appropriate Wikipedia pages or do a google on the terms Singularity and Transhumanism. For example, in my (admittedly) quick look at the blog I found no mention of Vernor Vinge or Max More; who originated said terms. The only thought leaders or information sources I did find were the author saying he had read the web pages of Hans Moravec and heard a C-Span interview of Ray Kurzweil.
In the end Infeasible isn't the gadfly Transhumanism needs; it isn't smart enough and it isn't clued in enough. And that is really too bad...
Why bother? The author says he wants to make the world a better place:
However, thanks to the internet, I can really make a positive impact on the world by maintaining this blog and refuting all Transhumanists claims. I might not be able to win the Nobel Prize, but I can certainly handle Transhumanism and in doing so, I can leave the world in a better state than I entered it.How does refuting Transhumanism make the world better? He doesn't actually say, he just doesn't like Transhumanism because those who believe in it cannot 'contemplate their own insignificance'. Despite claiming to be a scientist, the author repeats this kind of muddy thinking throughout the blog.
Still, one has to admit Transhumanists and Singulatarians often make silly and stupid claims which are easy targets. And I do believe there is plenty of room for criticism. I just wish the criticism wasn't coming from someone who proves in post after post that they have little more than a surface understanding of Transhumanist thought. (In fact I even spent a little time wondering if Infeasible wasn't a lame attempt at parody.)
This shallow treatment leads one to wonder if the author even bothered to read the appropriate Wikipedia pages or do a google on the terms Singularity and Transhumanism. For example, in my (admittedly) quick look at the blog I found no mention of Vernor Vinge or Max More; who originated said terms. The only thought leaders or information sources I did find were the author saying he had read the web pages of Hans Moravec and heard a C-Span interview of Ray Kurzweil.
In the end Infeasible isn't the gadfly Transhumanism needs; it isn't smart enough and it isn't clued in enough. And that is really too bad...
This isn't new, but you might want to keep a link to it anyway...
Back in July of 2006 they aired this NPR segment on the Singularity, featuring Cory Doctorow and Vernor Vinge. (Listen here.)
It makes a nice introduction for the Singularity noobs, but not much new for the proto-posthumans among us.
Back in July of 2006 they aired this NPR segment on the Singularity, featuring Cory Doctorow and Vernor Vinge. (Listen here.)
It makes a nice introduction for the Singularity noobs, but not much new for the proto-posthumans among us.
According to Sci Fi Wire, among other new shows in development for the Sci Fi channel is a six-hour miniseries based on 'The Diamond Age' by Neal Stephenson. Produced by, of all people, George Clooney:
When a prominent member of society concludes that the futuristic civilization in which he lives is stifling creativity, he commissions an interactive book for his daughter that serves as a guide through a surreal alternate world. Stephenson will adapt his novel for the miniseries, the first time the Hugo and Nebula award winner has written for TV.I have a bad feeling about this...
After two generations of being 'on the horizon', Artificial Intelligence actually looks within our grasp sometime soon. Or, if not true AI, then at least Artificial Stupidity: computers as smart as insects or fish.
Consider; actual quantum computing devices will reach the market soon and we already have robots driving across the desert and assembling Ikea bookcases!
Even considering that AI has been the exception to the usual speed of improvement in computers it seems clear these technologies will be out of the labs before the end of the decade. If said technology is capable of bootstrapping itself to higher levels, then we will probably see AI smarter than we are soon after. Followed soon after that by AI several orders of magnitude smarter yet. Raising the obvious question of how do we keep a godlike AI friendly towards us?
Michael Anissimov has looked into what it takes to make a friendly AI. The short version? This is a really hard problem and it is one we are probably going to have to deal with sooner rather than later, so maybe we should be paying people to think about it now.
My opinion? We probably shouldn't expect to crack this hard problem by time we need its solution, even if we do start now; we've had twenty thousand years to figure out how to keep people friendly to each other, and look at how much progress we've made on that front...
Consider; actual quantum computing devices will reach the market soon and we already have robots driving across the desert and assembling Ikea bookcases!
Even considering that AI has been the exception to the usual speed of improvement in computers it seems clear these technologies will be out of the labs before the end of the decade. If said technology is capable of bootstrapping itself to higher levels, then we will probably see AI smarter than we are soon after. Followed soon after that by AI several orders of magnitude smarter yet. Raising the obvious question of how do we keep a godlike AI friendly towards us?
Michael Anissimov has looked into what it takes to make a friendly AI. The short version? This is a really hard problem and it is one we are probably going to have to deal with sooner rather than later, so maybe we should be paying people to think about it now.
My opinion? We probably shouldn't expect to crack this hard problem by time we need its solution, even if we do start now; we've had twenty thousand years to figure out how to keep people friendly to each other, and look at how much progress we've made on that front...
At least partially because I was planning my previous post on God, Spirtuality, and the Singularity, I decided to dust off an old short story I had laying around and submit it to HardSF.net. They accepted it pretty quickly and it is already up on their website.
Why that particular story? It is basically my long answer to the questions in the Speculist survey I mentioned in the other blog post. I originally wrote the story more than fifteen years ago, and updated it earlier this year in order to submit it to a couple of markets (where it did exactly as well as it did fifteen years ago). However, given the subject at hand, I thought it better to put the story up somewhere where it could be read now, than continue down through my list of more illustrious markets.
The story is called "The Seed". It tackles the question of faith and the Singularity head on, from the viewpoint of someone who doesn't understand what is really happening. It uses a somewhat problematic mixed present time/flashback structure to tell a complicated tale of a father and his prodigal son. It uses a lot of symbolism, both overt and cryptic. It assumes the reader understands the Singularity, nanotechnology, genetics, cloning, neurology, intelligence enhancement, and many other advanced technologies because it uses them without explanation (and often without even naming them). It isn't the best thing I have ever written, but it is one of my favorites.
If I haven't scared you off yet, you can read "The Seed" here. If you do read it, please comment here or on the HardSF.net forums...
Why that particular story? It is basically my long answer to the questions in the Speculist survey I mentioned in the other blog post. I originally wrote the story more than fifteen years ago, and updated it earlier this year in order to submit it to a couple of markets (where it did exactly as well as it did fifteen years ago). However, given the subject at hand, I thought it better to put the story up somewhere where it could be read now, than continue down through my list of more illustrious markets.
The story is called "The Seed". It tackles the question of faith and the Singularity head on, from the viewpoint of someone who doesn't understand what is really happening. It uses a somewhat problematic mixed present time/flashback structure to tell a complicated tale of a father and his prodigal son. It uses a lot of symbolism, both overt and cryptic. It assumes the reader understands the Singularity, nanotechnology, genetics, cloning, neurology, intelligence enhancement, and many other advanced technologies because it uses them without explanation (and often without even naming them). It isn't the best thing I have ever written, but it is one of my favorites.
If I haven't scared you off yet, you can read "The Seed" here. If you do read it, please comment here or on the HardSF.net forums...
A while back, Phil Bowermaster of The Speculist posted an interesting piece titled God and the Singularity. This generated an even more interesting discussion, which I linked to at the time and even led to a followup post on The Speculist.
So, more recently, Phil decided to survey his readers on the subject. The questions and answers are summarized three separate posts here, here, and here.
Now, all this is a lot of reading, but if you are at all interested in the Singularity (or in faith) I suggest you wade through all the links above. Even a quick skim is going to give you a lot to think about. Not everyone responding to the survey understood what they were talking about, but intelligence and perspicacity was demonstrated far more often that you might expect.
Myself? I've studied a little and thought a lot about these things over the last thirty years, enough so that I have formed some strong opinions and even found my own philosophical center (cold, dry, and teleological as it might be); as a Techno-Rationalist and Deist. These beliefs informed my own answers to the survey. (See if you can recognize my contributions. Hint; the written answers seem to be in reverse chronological order, and I was one of the first few to complete the survey.)
To quote one of my answers:
So, more recently, Phil decided to survey his readers on the subject. The questions and answers are summarized three separate posts here, here, and here.
Now, all this is a lot of reading, but if you are at all interested in the Singularity (or in faith) I suggest you wade through all the links above. Even a quick skim is going to give you a lot to think about. Not everyone responding to the survey understood what they were talking about, but intelligence and perspicacity was demonstrated far more often that you might expect.
Myself? I've studied a little and thought a lot about these things over the last thirty years, enough so that I have formed some strong opinions and even found my own philosophical center (cold, dry, and teleological as it might be); as a Techno-Rationalist and Deist. These beliefs informed my own answers to the survey. (See if you can recognize my contributions. Hint; the written answers seem to be in reverse chronological order, and I was one of the first few to complete the survey.)
To quote one of my answers:
Spirtuality is a human condition. If we assume humans survive a Technological Singularity, then their humanity will remain part of the equation; a human raised to any power is still a human at some level. Of course, if we assume humans don't survive then please change my answer to 'false'...And another:
Paul's epistles refers to a 'Transmogrification' of believers when the kingdom of God has come; a kind of magical transformation into something greater and more heavenly. For a transhumanist, I think this sounds pretty much like the Technological Singularity.Many years ago I wrote a Science Fiction short story that took this subject head on. I've also written a couple of posts here at Antigravitas on similar subjects, both in a humorous vein and more seriously.
Warren Ellis is writing a new graphic novel set in the near future. Cool! I've certainly enjoyed his previous forays into science fiction and cyberpunk.
Only one he's having trouble with it... Apparently Warren is dealing with an embarrassing problem of Strossian proportions — it seems the present is already too weird to easily extrapolate from:
Only one he's having trouble with it... Apparently Warren is dealing with an embarrassing problem of Strossian proportions — it seems the present is already too weird to easily extrapolate from:
I've made more mileage out of mining the material of the 20th Century than most, and there's still tons there left to go, things that need reconsideration after that fastest of centuries. But I'm really trying not to go there, for this project. Four years after the end of TRANSMETROPOLITAN, I'm going back to social speculative fiction, to see how the landscape's changed. I'm hunting outbreaks of the future again, in a longform work.
I wouldn't think there's much doubt that things are getting strange again. And not the good kind of strange. A woman married a dolphin yesterday. Seriously. A US senator has declared that no woman can get an abortion in his own state unless she's a committed Christian virgin who's been beaten to within an inch of her life and anally raped. He said it on television. Quantum physicists are teleporting light. The truth behind that old "where's my bloody jetpack" view of the future is that the future is clearly not going to be that simple. In the last few months, I've started to get the feeling that maybe old miseryguts JG Ballard isn't right all the time, and the near future, at least, is going to be anything but banal. Unless, of course, you're already so dead inside that anything short of Jesus Robots descending en masse from the centre of the sun dispensing immortality juice and flying cars makes you yawn.
The future's getting weird and scary. My futurist friend Matt Jones said to me the other day that, in one sense, the future is a race between the Bright Spime Future and what other smart friend Dr Joshua Ellis has termed the Grim Meathook Future. What's the Grim Meathook Future? Take a look at New Orleans -- what is now called the K-Hole, the hole that Hurricane Katrina left in the United States. Everyone knew in advance that the 2006 hurricane season was going to be a freak one. The K-Hole is the remains of a massive system failure. That's the Grim Meathook Future: infrastructures that cannot cope. Dead bodies laying for two weeks on the streetcorners of the most powerful nation on earth: that's the Grim Meathook Future. Things turning backwards. I live on an island that's just been informed that there's probably not enough water to go round this summer. Turn that sentence around in your heads a few times.
So, anyway, it has to encapsulate that too. Whatever else it is, it's the story of a race between two futures.
Future Shock Levels.
I'm easily an SL3, but there are some SL4 aspects I feel comfortable with. What is your Shock Level?
I'm easily an SL3, but there are some SL4 aspects I feel comfortable with. What is your Shock Level?
Chip implanted in brain interfaces quadriplegic man to a computer.
Previous Cyborg Me:(Edit: Fixed link to news article.)
While many things are free, it is highly likely that you posses no employable skills, and therefore no way of earning money with which to purchase unfree items. The pace of change in the past century has rendered almost all skills you may have learned obsolete [see: singularity]. However, due to the rapid pace of change, many cooperatives, trusts, and guilds offer on-the-job training or educational loans.(From Charles Stross' 'Elector'.)
Your ability to learn depends on your ability to take information in the format in which it is offered. Implants are frequently used to provide a direct link between your brain and the intelligent machines that surround it. A basic core implant set is available on request from the City. [See: implant security, firewall, wetware.]
Your health is probably good if you have just been reinstantiated, and is likely to remain good for some time. Most diseases are curable, and, in event of an incurable ailment or injury a new body may be provided–for a fee. (In event of your murder, you will be furnished with a new body at the expense of your killer.) If you have any pre-existing medical conditions or handicaps, consult the City.
Previous Cyborg Me:(Edit: Fixed link to news article.)
Phil Bowermaster has a fascinating discussion going about God and the Singularity. Among other interesting thoughts there: instilling a concept of beauty into Artificial Intelligences in order to also install goodness in them.
I like that idea, although I'm not certain the two concepts are completely related. If we look at the only exemplars we have available, human beings, it seems to me that there are many who have an aesthetic sense; but are not all that good.
I like that idea, although I'm not certain the two concepts are completely related. If we look at the only exemplars we have available, human beings, it seems to me that there are many who have an aesthetic sense; but are not all that good.
The Singularity Project intends to build a prototype 'dependable' operating system. From the technical report:
Singularity is a research project in Microsoft Research that started with the question: what would a software platform look like if it was designed from scratch with the primary goal of dependability? Singularity is working to answer this question by building on advances in programming languages and tools to develop a new system architecture and operating system (named Singularity), with the aim of producing a more robust and dependable software platform. Singularity demonstrates the practicality of new technologies and architectural decisions, which should lead to the construction of more robust and dependable systems.So they aren't actually building Skynet. (Or at least they say they aren't.) Which opens the question of why they are invoking the 'S' word. Do they actually have grander ambitions, or are they just naming it with a cool buzzword?
The short review? Basically I called it right a couple of days ago, before I ever saw it:
I give it a B+, bumping it up a full grade for effort.
Yet, what reviews are out there today do leave a little room for hope; those who actually know something about Science Fiction are comparing the movie to Gattica, Lathe of Heaven, and Solaris. That, combined with the power of diminished expectations, might mean I will leave the theater happy tomorrow.( Click through for longer review. Mild spoiler warning! )
Meaning that 'Aeon Flux' the Karyn Kusama movie might not be 'Aeon Flux' the Peter Chung animation, but maybe it isn't just a bad Sci Fi (pronounced 'skiffy') action flick either . . .
I give it a B+, bumping it up a full grade for effort.
