The Singularity is Near

[Gerben42]

How do you measure if you know twice as much as before?

Anyway, it seems that in Astronomy one "generation" is somewhere between 5 and 10 years.

[mike777]

I do not know, perhaps another way to frame the question is in terms of rate of progress? In other words in the 21st century we will witness on the order of 20 thousand years of progress at the rate in 2000 or about 1000 times greater than what was achieved in the 20th century?

 

It does seem people intuitively assume that the current rate of progress will continue in future periods but does it not seem that the pace of change increases over time and the only issue is how much?

 

One tiny way of measurement is the rate of change in computations per seconds(CPS) of computing speed. Perhaps other fields have a way to measure rates of change in their specialization?

 

edit It would be interesting if one generation in astronomy is 5-10 years in 2006 if it becomes 4-9 in 2010 and 3-8 in 2014.

[Kalvan14]

May I submit that noone was able to predict the explosion of cellular phones, personal computers, internet, electronics in general?

 

It is also well known (and proven) that it is impossible to predict what will happen after a singularity point.

 

I'm overall reasonably optimist about the future of the world. There will be significant progresses in all the sciences, in particular biological sciences; and I also believe that life-span will be significantly enhanced in the next few decades (provided that suitable techniques are not yet available to a selected few, i mean).

The question is: which percentage of the human race will be able to afford these new techniques? We live in a world where life expectancy still goes from 35 years in the most deprived areas to 75-80 in the advanced ones. Quite an imbalance, not to mention the basic injustice of the thing. It would still be just peanuts compared to a worlds where the privileged ones can live 2 or 3 centuries (or more), while the unpriviliged ones are still stuck with their cheap 35-years lifespan.

[Gerben42]

So why is this Cambridge (is this Cambridge UK?) Professor so well known for this statement and not Arthur C. Clarke? BTW I've never heard of him.

 

Maybe progress is going at the same speed as in 1900 or Roman times but our self-centered thinking rates the amount of progress we make nowadays as higher.

 

I agree that there were times of more progress and times of less progress but are we really so much more revolutionary than for example the first decade of last century?

[Gerben42]

The question is: which percentage of the human race will be able to afford these new techniques? We live in a world where life expectancy still goes from 35 years in the most deprived areas to 75-80 in the advanced ones. Quite an imbalance, not to mention the basic injustice of the thing. It would still be just peanuts compared to a worlds where the privileged ones can live 2 or 3 centuries (or more), while the unpriviliged ones are still stuck with their cheap 35-years lifespan.

 

I would be willing to bet that it will be exactly like this. The question is what percentage will be able to get into the boat. The only way out of this is to radically reduce the population of the poor countries and at the same time reduce the wealth of the rich countries, neither of which is going to happen.

[rbforster]

Aubrey de Gray predicts that within 20 years, people will be living around 20 years longer.

Me and a friend would have debates starting with statements like this. He was the optimist and thought we would be first generation to live forever. I was the pessimist and thought we'd be the last generation not to.

[DrTodd13]

It appears that the increase in knowledge is following an exponential curve. On an exponential curve, you can't ask how long it takes for knowledge to double in general because it depends on where you are on the curve. You could view each separate field as being on its own exponential curve so medical knowledge may be doubling every 5 years and computer knowledge doubling every 4 years. I don't know if there is such a thing as infinite knowledge...are there really an infinite number of principles to be understood...so perhaps we'll enter a phase at some point where increase in knowledge starts to slow down again. When you get to this point then you're so close to knowing everything then it probably doesn't matter how fast you learn new things.

 

Like all new technology, the cure for aging at first will be expensive. Then the patent will expire in 17 years and then they'll be a ton of relatively cheap, mass-produced generic cure-for-aging medicines. This won't stop you from starving to death or dying from some diseases so maybe it won't help some of these people who today die at 35. I don't see anything unjust in this scenario. I think that people who are born into a hellhole and die at 35 are terribly unlucky but I don't think it is unjust for people born elsewhere to maximize their life potential. My hope is that one day everyone around the world will throw off the chains of totalitarian government and be free. When people cherish and maintain their freedom, they will become successful. It won't happen overnight but eventually it will.

[mike777]

The question is: which percentage of the human race will be able to afford these new techniques? We live in a world where life expectancy still goes from 35 years in the most deprived areas to 75-80 in the advanced ones. Quite an imbalance, not to mention the basic injustice of the thing. It would still be just peanuts compared to a worlds where the privileged ones can live 2 or 3 centuries (or more), while the unpriviliged ones are still stuck with their cheap 35-years lifespan.

 

I would be willing to bet that it will be exactly like this. The question is what percentage will be able to get into the boat. The only way out of this is to radically reduce the population of the poor countries and at the same time reduce the wealth of the rich countries, neither of which is going to happen.

Quite a radical proposition.

Just to keep the discussion going, is China an example of a very poor country becoming rich while its population continues to grow? How about Ireland?

What are the key factors that many third world countries continue to be extremely poor after century after century? Why do many third world countries seem to have living standards below the year 1776 in the USA?

 

Is Argentina an example of a very rich country, one of the wealthist in the world in the last 200 years becoming poor?

 

As for your other point is knowledge growing exponentially or linear I think the question is a very key one. There seems to be lots of studies showing this in the tech field but admit I cannot cite any in genetics or other fields. Does anyone know of any efforts to measure or study this issue?

[mike777]

For De Gray you can check out:

Experimental Gerontology 38.9 (sept 2003)

Science of Aging, Knowledge, Environment 1 (2003)

BioEssays 24.7 (july 2003)

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences vol 1019 june 2004

 

 

For some rate change data see Gordon E. Moore, "our revolution"

Max Moore, ManyWorlds, August 1, 2003.

Theodore Modis, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 69.4 2002

 

the data I see for other fields is sketchy at best.

[Kalvan14]

Which percentage of the population will be able to get in the boat? I'm a sceptic, and will tell you: 1.5% of the overall population (i.e. something like 100 millions).

The distribution will not be uniform: I'd anticipate that in the developed countries 5 to 10% of the population will have access to the new techniques, while in Africa it is mole likely to be .1%.

 

China is not increasing its population (or at least it is increasing at a very low rate); still the base is quite large. OTOH, China in the past was laways under the risk of a famine, and nowadays no more. Human rights are not exactly cherished, but it is obvious that the bulk of the population lives better than before (I said better: not much better, much less at an acceptable level).

 

India has also improved a lot, under a better regime, but without really stopping its growth.

 

Africa is probably the victim of a lot of bad luck, and worse management obviously.

 

Argentina is just the victim of bad management.

[Gerben42]

Just to keep the discussion going, is China an example of a very poor country becoming rich while its population continues to grow?

 

No. It's an example of a poor country where SOME people are getting rich. But since China has a population that is twice the EU and US together the number of people getting rich seems large.

 

Even so, China is not as overpopulated as one might think as it has a large land area of fertile soil. In 1950 one in four humans lived in China, now it's only one in five.

[mike777]

To offer a counterpoint here are some viewpoints that argue knowledge is in fact growing at a slower pace and not at an accelerating pace.

 

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?...es/art0656.html

 

"Take Jonathan Huebner, a physicist who works at the Pentagon's Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California. Questioning the whole notion of accelerating technical progress, he studied the rate of "significant innovations per person." Using as his sourcebook The History of Science and Technology, Huebner concluded that the rate of innovation peaked in 1873 and has been declining ever since. In fact, our current rate of innovation—which Huebner puts at seven important technological developments per billion people per year—is about the same as it was in 1600. By 2024, it will have slumped to the same level as it was in the Dark Ages, around 800 AD. "The number of advances wasn't increasing exponentially, I hadn't seen as many as I had expected."

[DrTodd13]

Innovations and knowledge aren't the same thing. It may be the case that to produce any significant innovation that you require more and more knowledge.

[the saint]

The expression "The Singularity" is one that I normally associate with Vernor Vinge.

 

Unfortunately, I think that Vinge and Kurweil miss a critical point: The same dynamics that drive the technological changes that underlie the Vinge's singularity also make it much cheaper/easier to kill things. Personally, I fear that our ability to destroy is rapidly outstripping our social maturity.

 

I know that this depressing, but I fully expect that we're going to destroy ourselves in advance of any singularity evolving. To me, the funamental question is whether its going to be some religious extremeist that kills us all or "just" some teenager who couldn't handle getting dumped.

Yes, this is the case. And while education remains as abject all over the world as it is and religion is allowed to dominate, this will remain the case. Man needs to accept that it is basically just another species and not some divine creation created in some holy image.

 

Humanity has only just begun to develop a social conscience through recognition of the horrors it alone has perpetuated - mass murder, war, slavery, and latterly things like environmental damage. Unfortunately as differing areas of the world are at different stages of maturity, this is not a uniform recognition of the situation and is further exacerbated by human greed.

 

We are the first species in the history of our tiny world to have evolved to the stage whereby we have an understanding and ability of the world around us to manipulate and exploit it. With that comes great responsibility. Frankly, looking at the people with that responsibility, it scares me sh!tless.

 

A person may be clever. But people are fundamentally stupid.

 

That is why education is the key to us making it to the 22nd century without our knowledge destroying us all.

[mike777]

"it alone has perpetuated - mass murder, war, slavery, and latterly things like environmental damage."

 

Just to educate others, keep in mind it has been documented that other animals, murder, wage war, have slaves and create great environmental damage.

 

 

As for the issue of self-destruction here is another viewpoint.

 

 

Singularities and Nightmares

David Brin

03/28/2006

*************************

Options for a coming singularity

include self-destruction of

civilization, a positive

singularity, a negative singularity

(machines take over), and retreat

into tradition. Our urgent goal:

find (and avoid) failure modes,

using anticipation (thought

experiments) and resiliency --

establishing robust systems that can

deal with almost any problem as it

arises.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/artRedirec...tID=656&m=22848

[DrTodd13]

Yes, this is the case. And while education remains as abject all over the world as it is and religion is allowed to dominate, this will remain the case. Man needs to accept that it is basically just another species and not some divine creation created in some holy image.

 

Humanity has only just begun to develop a social conscience through recognition of the horrors it alone has perpetuated - mass murder, war, slavery, and latterly things like environmental damage. Unfortunately as differing areas of the world are at different stages of maturity, this is not a uniform recognition of the situation and is further exacerbated by human greed.

 

We are the first species in the history of our tiny world to have evolved to the stage whereby we have an understanding and ability of the world around us to manipulate and exploit it. With that comes great responsibility. Frankly, looking at the people with that responsibility, it scares me sh!tless.

 

A person may be clever. But people are fundamentally stupid.

 

That is why education is the key to us making it to the 22nd century without our knowledge destroying us all.

Whether any religion is true or not, I think it would be very helpful if everyone believed in some peaceful religion that gives a purpose to life. If you believe the whole "our existence is a huge coincidence enabled by a random big bang followed by billions of year of random mutations" then the inevitable and rationale philosophy on which people operate would be "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die." I am of the opinion that people who believe that life is an accident must then believe that life is essentially pointless and that deep down this creates a core of misery that you can't shake with any amount of merriment. On the other hand, if there is a creator then perhaps there is a purpose to life that transcends time and space. At the very least, believing in something may enable people to be happier. If I could imagine a disaster scenario, I would envision a world without religion where hedonism and consumerism runs amock. Several major empires have already collapsed from within due to these factors. People forget the long-term and focus on short-term gratification and this is a recipe for disaster.

[mike777]

Scientists divided over longevity

BBC News Mar. 28, 2006

*************************

Aubrey de Grey's claims for long

life based on SENS (Strategies for

Engineered Negligible Senescence)

have drawn criticism from some

gerontologists....

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedire...ID=5424&m=22848

 

 

Nano-Guns, Nano-Germs, and

Nano-Steel

Mike Treder

03/29/2006

*************************

Within our lifetimes, we are likely

to witness battles on a scale never

before seen. Powered by molecular

manufacturing, near-future wars may

threaten our freedom, our way of

life, and even our survival.

Superior military technology allowed

the Spanish to conquer the Incan

empire in 1532. Could today?s most

powerful civilization, the United

States, be just as easily conquered

by a nano-enabled attacker?

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/artRedirec...tID=658&m=22848

[Al_U_Card]

Well, "live long and prosper" may just be quite the conundrum. The gulf stream is slowly winding down as the cool water elevators off Greenland are slowing dramatically because of melting arctic ice. As less heat is transported to Europe it will get more snow (gee, I think we may have arrived...) remember that continental Europe is pretty much the same latitude as James Bay in Canada. The CO2 in the atmosphere from the melting permafrost will complete the job as hurricanes caused by accumulated tropical oceanic heat makes category 6 storms possible. As Florida makes a tortoise-paced Atlantean departure and most coastal cities are flooded by the end of 2100 I will be glad to have been part of the last generation not to live forever....

[Sigi_BC84]

Yes, this is the case. And while education remains as abject all over the world as it is and religion is allowed to dominate, this will remain the case. Man needs to accept that it is basically just another species and not some divine creation created in some holy image.

I don't know where your anti-religious ressentiments come from, but to me it looks like they are impairing your ability to make objective observations in this regard.

 

Where is religion allowed to dominate? People are saying that the US is more and more dominated by christian fanatics and that the spread of Islam is a problem and there is this huge clash of Christianity vs. Islam and so on. To be honest, I don't think that this is the root of the problem.

 

The main problem in my eyes is an unjust distribution of wealth, leading to growing groups of highly frustrated people, many of which happen to live in islamic nations. This makes them highly susceptible to propaganda. Subtract the religion and the propaganda remains, it would just look different. Saddam Hussein did not lead his wars in the name of Islam. North Korea is not threatening the rest of the world in the name of any religion.

 

Also, you should stop throwing all religions into the same bucket. A large part of the world's population is religious without adhering to the idea of a divine creator.

 

The point you've raised about the lack of education has a lot more merit. Our leaders are not really interested in providing the best of education to everybody, because it would make it a lot harder to install puppets and spread propaganda. Also, the tiny part of the population that is actually in power (namely the people owning the majority of the wealth) has no strong interest either in the masses discovering what is really going on.

 

If you run a multi-national corporation, what do you care about religious groups? Be clever and they, too, will buy from you.

 

--Sigi

[mike777]

Nanoethics and Human Enhancement

Patrick Lin

Fritz Allhoff

03/31/2006

*************************

Radical nanotech-based human

enhancements such as bionic implants

and "respirocyte" artificial red

blood cells will become

technologically viable in the near

future, raising profound ethical

issues and forcing us to rethink

what it means to be human. Recent

pro-enhancement arguments will need

to be critically examined and

strengthened if they are to be

convincing.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/artRedirec...tID=661&m=22848

[luke warm]

Nanoethics and Human Enhancement

Patrick Lin

Fritz Allhoff

03/31/2006

*************************

Radical nanotech-based human

enhancements such as bionic implants

and "respirocyte" artificial red

blood cells will become

technologically viable in the near

future, raising profound ethical

issues and forcing us to rethink

what it means to be human. Recent

pro-enhancement arguments will need

to be critically examined and

strengthened if they are to be

convincing.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/artRedirec...tID=661&m=22848

who cares? the world has been, is, and always will be made up of the haves and the have nots... even in some socialistic utopia, there will be those two groups (with possibly a large minority in each thinking they are in the other)

 

ethics will play no part in who gets what, when... if it becomes cost efficient for corporations to provide such things, they will be provided... otherwise they won't be...

[mike777]

This is amazing, can other organs be less than 45 years behind?

 

 

"On a Scaffold in the Lab, Doctors Build a Bladder

 

New York Times, April 4, 2006

 

 

Bladders created in the laboratory from a patient's own cells and then implanted in seven young people have achieved good long-term results in all of them.

 

A major advantage of his technique is that rejection cannot occur because the cells used to create a new bladder are from the patient, not from another individual."

[mike777]

Man vs. machine

Herald Journal & HJNews Online April 5, 2006

*************************

Utah State University professor

Hugh De Garis predicts a takeover by

AI-based "artilects" and a coming

conflict between humans and machines

in his 2005 book "The Artilect War:

Cosmists vs. Terrans: A Bitter

Controversy Concerning Whether

Humanity Should Build Godlike

Massively Intelligent Machines." He

is featured in a coming documentary

by...

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedire...tml?newsID=5444

 

http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?....html?id%3D5444

[mike777]

No aging, robot cars - and radical

business plans

CNN May 25, 2006

*************************

If Ray Kurzweil is right, the

business landscape -- indeed, the

entire human race -- is about to be

transformed beyond all recognition.

Here's the question Kurzweil is

asking these days: What if the

exponential growth shown in Moore's

Law applies not just to etching

transistors in silicon chips, but to

all of human progress and...

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedire...ID=5567&m=22848

 

 

 

*************************

Honda says brain waves control

robot

AP May 25, 2006

*************************

Honda said it has developed a

technology that uses brain signals

to control a robot's very simple

moves. In a video demonstration in

Tokyo, brain signals detected by a

magnetic resonance imaging scanner

were relayed to a robotic hand. A

person in the MRI machine made a

fist, spread his fingers and then

made a V-sign. Several seconds

later, a...

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedire...ID=5566&m=22848

[mike777]

New Scientist Science in Society, May 13, 2009

 

 

It will soon be possible to boost human brainpower with electronic "plug-ins" or even by genetic enhancement. What will this mean for the future of humanity?

 

Would it widen the gulf between the world's haves and have-nots -- and perhaps even lead to a distinct and dominant species with unmatchable powers of intellect?

 

It won't be long before "clip-on" computer aids become available for everybody, says Andy Clark, a pro-enhancement philosopher at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. These could be anything from memory aids to the ability to "search" for information stored in your brain.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2022...true&print=true