The Singularity is the point at which humans lose control of machines. Technology will advance so rapidly, that humanity will no longer be able to keep up with its progress, UNLESS humankind merges with the technology it creates. Ray Kurzweil is the main voice behind the Singularity movement, the first to avidly project the idea to the media. People accuse Kurzweil of being a modern-day prophet, a "man who earns his living making outrageous claims and backing them up with pseudoscience," but his predictions about the exponential development of technology are based on solid data. And these predictions have profound implications. Kurzweil ends his documentary, Transcendent Man, with a very heavy quote: "People ask me if I believe a God exists. Well, I say, 'Not yet.'"
"2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal," an article by Lev Grossman, discusses the Singularity and Kurzweil's predictions. Part of the controversy of the Singularity, as mentioned in the article, comes from the ethical aspects of creating an AI more intelligent than a human. Since humans have never created such a high level of intellect, it is "impossible to predict the behavior of these smarter-than-human intelligences." Machines could be beneficial to our society, protecting humans from old-age and disease. Perhaps machines will see humankind as obsolete and will try to exterminate us, in a "Terminator Scenario." But, then again, maybe humans will merge with the machines becoming cyborgs.
Kurzweil banks on the latter prediction: he believes the three main technologies of the Singularity, GNR (Genetics, Nanotechnology, and Robotics), could eventually be utilized to enhance the human body and brain. He predicts that nanobots will be pumped directly into our brains, making humans hyper-intelligent. As one AI developer from Transcendent Man puts it: "We'll have Google plugged directly into our frontal cortex."
From a surface view, the Singularity looks like a brilliant thing. What's NOT to like about being smarter, faster, stronger, and just better in general? The question then becomes: By merging with machines, are we still ourselves? Will our lives still have meaning as we become virtually immortal? I would personally sacrifice my human body any day to become a hyper-intelligent being, but other people may not share my interest.
One must also look at the machine perspective of the situation. Although machines will inevitably become much more intelligent than all of humanity combined, will they ever have a "mysterious spark of consciousness"? Will a "great AI," an intelligence able to learn, think, and perform broad range of tasks, ever be considered alive in the sense a biological lifeform is considered alive?
The technology of the Singularity is too far ahead to answer these questions. But the questions remain.
Regardless, the Singularity IS a good thing. Society will benefit from the technology we create. Diseases will be cured. Aging will be slowed, stopped, or even reversed. More and more people will gain access to technology, and more lives will be improved. For those who want it, immortality will no longer be impossible. One part of Aldous Huxley's eerie satire, Brave New World, oddly fits the idea of the Singularity: "Progress is good."
In Brave New World, Bernard comes to a startling realization that the biological efficiency of the "civilized world," causes its citizens to lose their humanity. Unfortunately, Brave New World has little to do with the predicted Singularity. The problem with Bernard's world lies with its ethical standards. Brave New World clones, biologically modifies, and brainwashes its newborns. The Singularity has no connection to these monstrous acts; there are already laws in place against the cloning of human beings, and there will be laws in place against the biological mutilation of the human genome. Whatever happens leading up to the Singularity will be in the interest of the human race. Whatever happens during and after the Singularity: well, one would have to ask the superior race at the time.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Analysis of an analysis of an analysis of a life
Time is something humans take for granted every day. Humans often perceive life in chronological order, because the universe tends to head in that direction. But if one takes a step back from the physical world and begins to think, time loses meaning. Sure, the mind technically thinks chronologically, but the ideas it presents are not temporal. When these two concepts meet, when timelessness of the mental world tries to organize the chronology of the physical world, chaos tends to follow. In “Dealing with Time in an Autobiography,” Rebecca A. Demarest explores the relationship between time and writing an autobiography. Demarest pays particular attention to the autobiographical work of two authors: Kurt Vonnegut and Vladimir Nabokov. Connecting the two authors' backgrounds in literature with their autobiographies, Demarest compares the temporal style of both authors. Demarest appeals to the audiences logic, demonstrating how integral time is to an autobiography through factual evidence.
Demarest is highly analytical in her essay, essentially writing how I am trying to write at the moment. Her language is almost robotic in nature, but simultaneously fluid; she masks the impressive literary nature of critical analysis with an expressive nature. Demarest cites quotation from the two author's liberally, organizing and providing evidence for all of her observations. She freely jumps between the styles of Vonnegut and Nabokov, paralleling each point of the authors' use of time. For example, when Demarest contrasts the means both authors use to organize their scattered thoughts, she states that Vonnegut organizes his surreal style by providing actual dates, while Nabokov “jumps from event to event with lines such as 'But let me see. I had an even earlier association with that war.'”
Demarest obviously avoids writing algorithms, such as Shaffer. She organizes her essay by building her concept of the two authors' temporal styles. She introduces the reader to the surreal style of Vonnegut and the slightly less fluid style of Nabokov, and then continues to build on these two styles with more and more detail. Before the end of the article, she includes a few words from other authors on the concept of time in biographies, to provide some outside persepctive. Demarest sums up her essay with a global statement of concerning the effect the authors' were trying to attain with their styles: “Vonnegut uses the Tralfamadorian novel and Nabokov uses what appears to the reader to be an arbitrary recall method, but both serve the purpose of orientating the reader to their lives and helping to build a roadmap of events.“ Both Vonnegut and Nabokov write the way they write to provide a “big picture,” instead of an incoherent series of events. Demarest successfully synthesizes the two different writing styles, connecting them with a common purpose.
From the free flowing tone of the passage, it seems that Demarest studies the temporal styles of Vonnegut and Nabokov because she wants to, not because she needs to. Her writing does not necessarily follow any “rules,” except for a logical order of thought.
Link to article: http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/366/2/dealing-with-time-in-an-autobiography
Demarest is highly analytical in her essay, essentially writing how I am trying to write at the moment. Her language is almost robotic in nature, but simultaneously fluid; she masks the impressive literary nature of critical analysis with an expressive nature. Demarest cites quotation from the two author's liberally, organizing and providing evidence for all of her observations. She freely jumps between the styles of Vonnegut and Nabokov, paralleling each point of the authors' use of time. For example, when Demarest contrasts the means both authors use to organize their scattered thoughts, she states that Vonnegut organizes his surreal style by providing actual dates, while Nabokov “jumps from event to event with lines such as 'But let me see. I had an even earlier association with that war.'”
Demarest obviously avoids writing algorithms, such as Shaffer. She organizes her essay by building her concept of the two authors' temporal styles. She introduces the reader to the surreal style of Vonnegut and the slightly less fluid style of Nabokov, and then continues to build on these two styles with more and more detail. Before the end of the article, she includes a few words from other authors on the concept of time in biographies, to provide some outside persepctive. Demarest sums up her essay with a global statement of concerning the effect the authors' were trying to attain with their styles: “Vonnegut uses the Tralfamadorian novel and Nabokov uses what appears to the reader to be an arbitrary recall method, but both serve the purpose of orientating the reader to their lives and helping to build a roadmap of events.“ Both Vonnegut and Nabokov write the way they write to provide a “big picture,” instead of an incoherent series of events. Demarest successfully synthesizes the two different writing styles, connecting them with a common purpose.
From the free flowing tone of the passage, it seems that Demarest studies the temporal styles of Vonnegut and Nabokov because she wants to, not because she needs to. Her writing does not necessarily follow any “rules,” except for a logical order of thought.
Link to article: http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/366/2/dealing-with-time-in-an-autobiography
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