Human 2.0: Kurzweil's Singularity

by Andrew Bast

Dreamers shove the world. Think Galileo vs. the Catholic Church, or Bill Gates’ cocky mug shot. A visionary–a true inventor–possesses not only skill, wit, and brilliance, but also a good bit of quixotic reverie.

Ray Kurzweil argues that computer power will exceed that of the human brain in about two decades, and the urge is to sneer and write him off as a fantastical loon. He talks about computers transcending biology. Phooey, you say! However, sit down with his most recent book, The Singularity is Near, and you might change your mind.

Kurzweil’s name likely sounds familiar because it’s printed on electric pianos. He invented the synthesizer and as a teenager composed a piano piece with a computer that landed him a gig on the CBS television show I’ve Got A Secret. Since then, he’s been front-and-center at every step of the computing revolution. He was inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame in 2002, and is widely known as a “futurist.”

The Singularity is Near is a hefty, dense tome of scientific speculation, and the central argument goes as follows: computer power is growing exponentially, and if the rate of growth continues, computers get pretty smart pretty quick. (Click on the chart at the right to see Kurzweil’s computer-power graph.)

Eventually computers will “transcend biology,” Kurzweil says. This is the Singularity, and it will represent the fifth human epoch. Humankind has seen four epochs, Kurzweil says, and there will be two more. Eventually biology and technology will merge, and the universe will be saturated with superintelligent processes (the result of the biological and technological merger). He writes:

There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality. If you wonder what will remain unequivocally human in such a world, it’s simply this quality: ours is the species that inherently seeks to extend its physical and mental reach beyond current limitations.

There are, as Kurzweil writes, several huge advantages in the Singularity. Nanobots can repair broken immune systems. More importantly, virtual sex will afford infinite pleasures, regardless of your dating status. There are also huge drawbacks.

Nobody ever said taking advantage of every developing technology was necessarily progressive development. Regarding repaired immune systems, who’s going to have the luxury, only those who can afford it—and what will that immediately subjugate a lesser class of “old” humans? As for the virtual sex, well, in the strong sense, that may just be too good to be true. Much of why good sex, that is, really good sex, is that way is because the ho-hum-hum-hum all by yourself still leaves something to be desired.

The most unsettling fact, not to mention perhaps the most damning, is that even in the Singularity, there are hackers.

(Top image from flickr and "Exponential Growth of Computing" graph Courtesy of Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. Click to enlarge.)

Comments

[Marci Soledad]

No need to wait -- I became a computer when my office made me get a blackberry two months ago.

I'm programmed, period.

[Mark M.]

transcend biology? try again. we make the computers, so no matter how "smart" you make them, they're not going to surpass us in any way. it's impossible -- or it already would have happened.

[Rob Jenkins]

Ha! It already HAS happened hundreds of years ago. We are all living in a virtual world created by the computer that controls us all and is feeding off the electrical activity of our brains. Sure I saw something about that somewhere anyway....

[Lino]

Well..this is not true..
Actually we make computers with limited calculation capacity. If this potential grows FOR SURE will begin to appear thinking computers (computers that can react and interact intelligently with humans) If you think at the current technology status you'll find computers that analyze images, texts.. yes.. those are algos but.. did you ever heard of neural nets? you can actually program a computer to learn things (like a child does)
The actual CPU power doesn't allow us to build very BIG neural nets.. so this self-intelligence is very limited but if this potential grows a single self-learning software could think as smarter as humans or even better.
Well this "artificial intelligency" will surely be a positive thing.. a "good thinking" computer could replace humans in taking decisions quickly and more efficently.. This unless computers will auto-learn to cheat like humans do each other.
And if one single being can be subtle.. do you think that one computer smarter than the whole human being (in 2080) with the right (or better "wrong") program can be a good thing?
Yes you may say "we can set the rule 1: no lies, no cheat, no try to fuck humans"..
and a very smart computer will surely do what actually humans do with computer programs HACK IT..
it is a very paradossal future.. maybe neiter you nor me will be here to see it.. but it will surely happen..
it's nature of thinking..You make a rule, a thinking "being" will always try to force or break it.. so your software rule 1 could be hacked or bypassed by software itself simply finding a programming bug that allows it to.
(and this is not fantascience..actually some softwares analyze other softwares to find programming bugs)

Don't think at what are the computers today.. think as if you had a computer with the human mind but more powerful..And the "it's impossible" theory will collapse on itself.

[.frob]

Minus all the typos, Rob Jenkins comment is EXACTLY what I was thinking.

[.frob]

Oops, I meant Lino's comment. (Mr. Jenkins' comment was just the aftermath of my thoughts, haha)

[Eric J. White]

Yes, well, at least part of that has already come true. And Kurzweil is merely "reporting," not predicting.
Our technology, the Virtual Sex Machine has been available to the world for several years. And it's most recent incarnation uses a computer to blur the lines.
It is, without a doubt, the most realistic virtual Reality Sexual simulation system ever invented. It is the realization of every VR dreamer's imagination; at some point in their speculations.
We have no intention of stopping now.
This is only the beginning.....

[+031]

The only thing I can’t find is… miracle of existence (God, Buddha, Jahve, Allah… )??

[Mike Hare]

The issue cones down to the following question: Is there a fundemental difference between computation and human thought. Of course no one can answer this question yet. Can a computer do something that requires abstract thought, like mathematics or physics. (and before someone says computers can do math better than humans, computers can do arithmatic and some symbolic stuff better than humans, not real mathematics) I am not including art, music etc because it is not easy to judge these activities, where as we can check the correctness of a proof.
It will be interested to see what computers do in the future, but I am not as optimistic as some it seems.

[forPPP]

The topic of intelligent computers is coming back about every 3 years ;) I don't know why there is so much excitment. It has been shown many times that speed (calculations per seconds) is not enough to make intelligence. Neural networks also are not enough. Neural network just solve some problem - simulated problems that are not real.
Just some point to start: Why human brain on the chart is 10^15, but we are doing arithmetic operations several trillions times slower than today fastest super computer. We are intelligent, but this super computer is not. Of course it's simplicity, but a good start to think about it. As long as computers will be using logic and discrete algorithms we won't see inteligence.

[Matija L]

There is something, us "old humans" will always have: EMP

>:)

[atle]

They might try to use a combination of a neural net, associative memory for the node interconnections and a genetic algorithm to configure the associative memory if they are to create intelligence.
There would have to be some sort of survival function, like how 'efficient' any configuration might be, maybe throw random problems at it at first to get it going?
Or just give it A/V input and some way to react to it?

[Peztroleo]

yea right!!!
what about peak-oil?
jajjajaj.
this guy is so funny

[Kraak]

I agree to Mike Hare's opinions. I don't understand why people get so excited about the growth of traditional computing power. Isn't it just that somebody has estimated the computing power of human brain, and everyone automatically thinks that when we reach that level we'll have superhuman brains at our hands. I just don't get it. How will that huge pile of logical operations be smart again?

First of all we'd need to fully understand how the brain works. We're not there yet. You do have to understand that neural nets and such are just estimates of what's happening on small scale in the brains. Where as neurons itself are biological entities that react to chemicals and such, computing neuron is a very very simple piece of algorithm with simple inputs and output(s). We don't even know if brains are working completely deterministically or maybe are essentially driven by some quantum physics phenomenon we don't understand. I'm not saying it is so, I'm just saying we don't know squat.

If we'd know all that, we could very much implement it with current computer architectures. It'd just be a bit slot, but hey, as long as it's super human it should start reaching singularity the moment it's compiled and ran. I wouldn't mind if it took a whole month to know the cure for cancer or AIDS. If you don't think it has enough computing power today, what about Brain at Home project? Might be a better place to find intelligence than outerspace.

Nevertheless we're not there yet. We're nowhere near. Next time when you're there really and feel up to it, try to tackle something really funky. Try explaining conscience.

[Dirtbag]

I can't wait for the computers to take over, as long as they're not mean computers like in Terminator. Or like the Decepticons. Or even Bumblebee from the Autobots. He's a good guy but he's still a huge pussy and what's the point of robots if they're going to be pussies?

[kenmore]

that IS the point. (you must be a gay robot), the rest of us are forever looking for a robot loose with her cd drive door. Schmuck....You ruin our chase by pretending to want them for their minds.

[Dirtbag]

You take my description of Bumblebee too literally. Although that would definitely be an interesting transformer.