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Hopefully it will make an entertaining movie, but man, I really hate all things associated with "The Singularity". Nothing fills me with more irrational (impot

Hopefully it will make an entertaining movie, but man, I really hate all things associated with "The Singularity". Nothing fills me with more irrational (impotent) rage than people babbling on about the Singularity.

bhousel 14y ago
Ok, I'll bite. Why do you care?
- thwest 14y ago
  It reifies the teleology and savior complex that make monotheistic religions troublesome. It ignores morality and aesthetics in favor of an unknowable, uncontrollable machine logic.
  - megrimlock 14y ago
    It kinda has a similar problem to the Hegelian dialectic that Marx built his stuff on. The Singularity argument observes some trends and presumes they will continue along the same profile, carrying our society towards a specific phase-change that we've never seen before. Extrapolating trends is one thing; arguing that some novel configuration is inevitable is another.
    - thwest 14y ago
      That's interesting, can you elaborate? The dialectic is troublesome, especially from the perspective of Deleuze's multitide, but I don't immediately see how it is tied to a claim of novel configuration. In my experience with Marx, the dialectic mostly let Marx approach Smith and Ricardo's works in a way that allowed for the inclusion of a wider conception of the conditions and consequences of capital. Whereas a WSJ oped might say "capital has benefits! the downsides are simply worth it", Marx takes a benefit and a downside, considers them 'an internal contradiction of capital', then uses a dialectical mode to reveal some hidden 3rd variable. Are you referencing Das Kapital's inevitability of the rate of profit to decline? Or something in one of the more explicitly political texts about the inevitability of communism? I can only really discuss Das Kapital, which I feel is more of a historical reflection on political economy than the explicit party politics you might find in the Manifesto.
- ksmiley 14y ago
  Here's a criticism of the Singularity I've seen a couple times that originates from the web comic, Pictures For Sad Children. "There's a special kind of nerd though who thinks computers will overtake mankind in thirty years, changing humanity in ways incomprehensible to us now. Ignoring the third of the world without electricity. So the singularity is the nerd way of saying, "in the future, being rich and white will be even more awesome". It's flying car bullshit: surely the world will conform to our speculative fiction. Surely we're the ones who will get to live in the future. It gives spiritual significance to technology developed primarily for entertainment or warfare, and gives nerds something to obsess over that isn't the crushing vacuousness of their lives." Although in my mind that's more of a criticism of the adulation of the Singularity by its adherents than of the actual Singularity itself.
  - Uhhrrr 14y ago
    The nerd adulation comes from the idea that having understanding of computers will be more awesome, not being rich and white. The fact that they make that substitution shows a certain mired pathos. EDIT: FWIW, I think the Kurzweil view is ridiculously optimistic.
    - mej10 14y ago
      It has always struck me as odd that people dismiss the singularity as a nerd fantasy. They latch on to one view of it and make up their minds about the idea itself. The people I know that take it seriously are much more afraid of it than anything. They think that it will be an extinction event rather than the nerd rapture.
  - salgernon 14y ago
    This is exactly the mindset among evangelical christians that believe the rapture is right around the corner - and every generation of evangelical back to the 1800s has believed that the rapture is imminent and of course, that they as individuals will be saved.
  - dbaupp 14y ago
    > Ignoring the third of the world without electricity ... "in the future, being rich and white will be even more awesome" There is a portion of the "Singularitarians" pushing for the Singularity because such a large segment of the world is so disadvantaged, they want humanity to move forward. Their line is more "in the future, being human will be even more awesome". (For the most part, this group has a fairly low opinion of Kurzweil and his accelerating curves or whatever he calls them.)
- polyfractal 14y ago
  Oof, Comcast died as soon as I made this post. I have two major contentions. First, I'm a neuroscientist by training, so hearing anything related to "upload my brain" just makes me weep. The only realistic way to "upload your brain" is to pump your body full of fixatives (paraformaldehyde), section it on a cryostat and then perform electron microscopy across every single slice. Then put it all back together (fixing skewing artifacts, etc) on a computer. THEN make a simulation out of it, where every atom of your body is replicated with pristine accuracy. Otherwise you are not yourself anymore. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's so far from likely that being near-immortal due to bio-enhancements is almost certainly more practical. Or you can develop some "scanning ray gun" which does the same thing without killing you first, I suppose. Second, the whole notion of "exponentially increasing intelligence" I find silly. Are we more intelligent than homo sapiens 3000 years ago? Perhaps more scholarly, more literate, more capable of engineering complex systems. But our inherent, base intelligence is not any different. Just applied to different problems and starting at different bases of knowledge. Edit: Musing on this, I find a "Matrix"-style hostile takeover of highly intelligent AI much more likely than humans "transcending" into some super-computing cloud of blissful hyperintelligence. That's seems much more likely than humans ever fully shucking our meat bag bodies.
  - chc 14y ago
    It sounds like you know what they mean by "intelligence," but you're instead choosing to use your preferred definition and call them wrong based on semantics. Being more scholarly, more literate and capable of solving much bigger problems sounds like something that could reasonably be summarized as "more intelligent."
    - polyfractal 14y ago
      Fair enough. I mused on this in one of the responses up above. I still don't think that makes a person more innately intelligent. More capable, perhaps, but not more intelligent. But, humans are pretty fond of defending our position in the cosmos and our idea of "human intelligence", so maybe this is just speciesism at work =)
  - 14y ago
jere 14y ago
I totally agree. Just hearing the name Kurzweil enrages me these days. But! I think the singularity deserves to have a presence in fiction, even if it can't have one in reality. Some of the best sci-fi is built on whimsical and unrealistic technologies.
- freyr 14y ago
  > even if it can't have one in reality It doesn't have a presence in reality, it apparently won't have a presence in reality any time soon, but saying it can't happen is about as egotistical as we could be. Our generation has not yet discovered a means to synthesize this type of intelligence, but there is still plenty of time left to figure it out. We just don't know yet if it can happen or not.
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    Exactly. Claiming a singularity is impossible is like claiming there is no life elsewhere in the galaxy. Only fools speak in absolute terms about unknowns.
    - mcguire 14y ago
      Flying Spaghetti Monster for the win!
  - jere 14y ago
    That's perfectly fine, but Kurzweil is putting some rather precise dates on these things happening and how they're going to happen. I actually think strong AI is probably inevitable, but I have no reason to think it's going to take 30 years instead of 3,000. The credibility of the claims is somewhat diminished by the convenience. His argument is literally "I am going to be able to live just long enough to live forever and resurrect my dead father." And assuming we did invent strong AI, so what? It doesn't necessarily or immediately lead to a singularity. We already have several billion human brains and have had them for quite some time.
    - 14y ago
baddox 14y ago
Hopefully you're only expressing disdain for people who treat it as a scientific inevitability, rather than a science fiction trope. As a sci-fi trope, it's pretty darn cool.
- polyfractal 14y ago
  Yep, as a fun science-fiction idea...it's a lot of fun. I've enjoyed several novels where the Singularity is central to the plot. Fun to read about. Mostly ridiculous to talk about in practice (imo).
rayiner 14y ago
Irrational (impotent) rage is really the right terminology.
gojomo 14y ago
Rage is irrelevant. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.

bhousel 14y ago

Ok, I'll bite. Why do you care?

thwest 14y ago
It reifies the teleology and savior complex that make monotheistic religions troublesome. It ignores morality and aesthetics in favor of an unknowable, uncontrollable machine logic.
- megrimlock 14y ago
  It kinda has a similar problem to the Hegelian dialectic that Marx built his stuff on. The Singularity argument observes some trends and presumes they will continue along the same profile, carrying our society towards a specific phase-change that we've never seen before. Extrapolating trends is one thing; arguing that some novel configuration is inevitable is another.
  - thwest 14y ago
    That's interesting, can you elaborate? The dialectic is troublesome, especially from the perspective of Deleuze's multitide, but I don't immediately see how it is tied to a claim of novel configuration. In my experience with Marx, the dialectic mostly let Marx approach Smith and Ricardo's works in a way that allowed for the inclusion of a wider conception of the conditions and consequences of capital. Whereas a WSJ oped might say "capital has benefits! the downsides are simply worth it", Marx takes a benefit and a downside, considers them 'an internal contradiction of capital', then uses a dialectical mode to reveal some hidden 3rd variable. Are you referencing Das Kapital's inevitability of the rate of profit to decline? Or something in one of the more explicitly political texts about the inevitability of communism? I can only really discuss Das Kapital, which I feel is more of a historical reflection on political economy than the explicit party politics you might find in the Manifesto.
ksmiley 14y ago
Here's a criticism of the Singularity I've seen a couple times that originates from the web comic, Pictures For Sad Children. "There's a special kind of nerd though who thinks computers will overtake mankind in thirty years, changing humanity in ways incomprehensible to us now. Ignoring the third of the world without electricity. So the singularity is the nerd way of saying, "in the future, being rich and white will be even more awesome". It's flying car bullshit: surely the world will conform to our speculative fiction. Surely we're the ones who will get to live in the future. It gives spiritual significance to technology developed primarily for entertainment or warfare, and gives nerds something to obsess over that isn't the crushing vacuousness of their lives." Although in my mind that's more of a criticism of the adulation of the Singularity by its adherents than of the actual Singularity itself.
- Uhhrrr 14y ago
  The nerd adulation comes from the idea that having understanding of computers will be more awesome, not being rich and white. The fact that they make that substitution shows a certain mired pathos. EDIT: FWIW, I think the Kurzweil view is ridiculously optimistic.
  - mej10 14y ago
    It has always struck me as odd that people dismiss the singularity as a nerd fantasy. They latch on to one view of it and make up their minds about the idea itself. The people I know that take it seriously are much more afraid of it than anything. They think that it will be an extinction event rather than the nerd rapture.
- salgernon 14y ago
  This is exactly the mindset among evangelical christians that believe the rapture is right around the corner - and every generation of evangelical back to the 1800s has believed that the rapture is imminent and of course, that they as individuals will be saved.
- dbaupp 14y ago
  > Ignoring the third of the world without electricity ... "in the future, being rich and white will be even more awesome" There is a portion of the "Singularitarians" pushing for the Singularity because such a large segment of the world is so disadvantaged, they want humanity to move forward. Their line is more "in the future, being human will be even more awesome". (For the most part, this group has a fairly low opinion of Kurzweil and his accelerating curves or whatever he calls them.)
polyfractal 14y ago
Oof, Comcast died as soon as I made this post. I have two major contentions. First, I'm a neuroscientist by training, so hearing anything related to "upload my brain" just makes me weep. The only realistic way to "upload your brain" is to pump your body full of fixatives (paraformaldehyde), section it on a cryostat and then perform electron microscopy across every single slice. Then put it all back together (fixing skewing artifacts, etc) on a computer. THEN make a simulation out of it, where every atom of your body is replicated with pristine accuracy. Otherwise you are not yourself anymore. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's so far from likely that being near-immortal due to bio-enhancements is almost certainly more practical. Or you can develop some "scanning ray gun" which does the same thing without killing you first, I suppose. Second, the whole notion of "exponentially increasing intelligence" I find silly. Are we more intelligent than homo sapiens 3000 years ago? Perhaps more scholarly, more literate, more capable of engineering complex systems. But our inherent, base intelligence is not any different. Just applied to different problems and starting at different bases of knowledge. Edit: Musing on this, I find a "Matrix"-style hostile takeover of highly intelligent AI much more likely than humans "transcending" into some super-computing cloud of blissful hyperintelligence. That's seems much more likely than humans ever fully shucking our meat bag bodies.
- chc 14y ago
  It sounds like you know what they mean by "intelligence," but you're instead choosing to use your preferred definition and call them wrong based on semantics. Being more scholarly, more literate and capable of solving much bigger problems sounds like something that could reasonably be summarized as "more intelligent."
  - polyfractal 14y ago
    Fair enough. I mused on this in one of the responses up above. I still don't think that makes a person more innately intelligent. More capable, perhaps, but not more intelligent. But, humans are pretty fond of defending our position in the cosmos and our idea of "human intelligence", so maybe this is just speciesism at work =)
- 14y ago

jere 14y ago

I totally agree. Just hearing the name Kurzweil enrages me these days. But! I think the singularity deserves to have a presence in fiction, even if it can't have one in reality. Some of the best sci-fi is built on whimsical and unrealistic technologies.

freyr 14y ago
> even if it can't have one in reality It doesn't have a presence in reality, it apparently won't have a presence in reality any time soon, but saying it can't happen is about as egotistical as we could be. Our generation has not yet discovered a means to synthesize this type of intelligence, but there is still plenty of time left to figure it out. We just don't know yet if it can happen or not.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  Exactly. Claiming a singularity is impossible is like claiming there is no life elsewhere in the galaxy. Only fools speak in absolute terms about unknowns.
  - mcguire 14y ago
    Flying Spaghetti Monster for the win!
- jere 14y ago
  That's perfectly fine, but Kurzweil is putting some rather precise dates on these things happening and how they're going to happen. I actually think strong AI is probably inevitable, but I have no reason to think it's going to take 30 years instead of 3,000. The credibility of the claims is somewhat diminished by the convenience. His argument is literally "I am going to be able to live just long enough to live forever and resurrect my dead father." And assuming we did invent strong AI, so what? It doesn't necessarily or immediately lead to a singularity. We already have several billion human brains and have had them for quite some time.
  - 14y ago

baddox 14y ago

Hopefully you're only expressing disdain for people who treat it as a scientific inevitability, rather than a science fiction trope. As a sci-fi trope, it's pretty darn cool.

polyfractal 14y ago
Yep, as a fun science-fiction idea...it's a lot of fun. I've enjoyed several novels where the Singularity is central to the plot. Fun to read about. Mostly ridiculous to talk about in practice (imo).

rayiner 14y ago

Irrational (impotent) rage is really the right terminology.

gojomo 14y ago

Rage is irrelevant. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.