WARNING
There is not much original material in this section of the Site. As in may other pages of this site, most of the originality you can find is my personal way to select, file and organize related info available in the web. I always link to the site where I found the material or to the site where it was originally published, if I've been able to localize it and the material is not very spread.
BASICS AND DEFINITIONS - WHY THIS SECTION IN THIS SITE?
As
Ray Kurzweil explains, mathematicians use the word
Singularity to
denote a value that transcends any finite limitation. Consider y=1/x.
This function never actually achieves an infinite value, since dividing
by zero is mathematically impossible to calculate (undefined), but the
value of y exceeds any possible limit (approaches infinity) as x
approaches zero.
Astrophysics call black holes Singularities. One
theory speculates that the universe itself began with such a
Singularity.
As an event capable of rupturing the fabric of human
history, which is the focus of this page, the expression Singularity first appears in
John von Neumann (1950) and later in
I.J. Good (1960s),
Vernor Vinge (author of the 1993 seminal paper
The Comming Technological Singularity),
Kurzweil and
Hans Moravec (
Mind Children: the future of robot and human intelligence, 1988).
Ray Kurzweil has written
The Age of Intelligent Machines (1989),
The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (1999) and
The Singularity is near. When humans transcend biology (2005), and some
other publications related with these subjects.
The
Singularity (
see below) will, according to Kurzweil, "
represent
the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence
with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that
transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction
post-Singularity between human and machine or between physical and
virtual reality." The Singularity "[i]
s a merger between human intelligence and
machine intelligence that is going to create something bigger than
itself. It's the cutting edge of evolution on our planet."
According to
Kurzweil, the
Singularity, that will happen around 2045, means that technology will allow humans "
to transcend our biological bodies and brains ... (and live well forever
)
- [O]ne
of the salient implications of the Singularity will be a change in the
nature of our ability to understand. We will become vastly smarter as
we merge with our technology...
- [A]
key observation regarding the Singularity is that information processes
-computation- will ultimately drive everything that is important.
- [I]n the aftermath of the Singularity,
intelligence, derived from its biological origins in human brains and
its technological origins in human ingenuity, will begin to saturate
the matter and energy in its midst... [B]y reorganizing matter and
energy to provide an optimal level of computation to spread out from
its origin on Earth... In any event, the 'dumb' matter and mechanisms
of the universe will be transformed into exquisitely sublimes forms of
intelligence...
- [U]ltimately,
the entire universe will become saturated with our intelligence. This
is the destiny of the universe. We will determine our own fate rather
than have it determined by the current 'dumb', simple, machinelike
forces that rule celestial mechanisms. ...
- [T]he
intelligence that will emerge will continue to represent the human
civilization, which is already a humane-machine civilization. In other
words, future machines will be human, even if they are not biological.
... Our civilization will remain human... although our understanding of
the term will move beyond its biological origins.
This means that we will have (in fact, we already have) to deal with AI (Accelerating/Artificial Intelligence), GNR (Genetics,
Nanotechnology, Robotics), cps, respirocites, intelligence enhancement and brain reverse
engineering, modeling and simulation (looks like functional simulation
will be completed by the 2020s... and by the early 2030s will be
feasible to upload a human brain with a 1,000$ laptop; functional
simulation of human intelligence will be passing
the Touring test by 2029 - will your uploaded brain be really you?), cellular-automaton computers,
Drexler's molecular assemblers (
no fat and sticky fingers, no, no, no, Mr. Smalley), self-replicating molecular nanobots, self-assembly in carbon-nanotube circuits ("
one cubic inch of nanotube circuitry, once fully developed, would be up to 100 million times more powerful than the human brain", explains
Kurzweil), computing with DNA, quantum dots and qubits, spintronics, foglet reality, pico- (10
-12) and femto- (10
-15) technologies,
Markov models, genetic algorithms, attoseconds (10
-18), stochastic (random within carefully controlled constraints) and chaotic (random and unpredictable) processes,
Hebbian response of neural learning, ... and many other ultra fascinating notions and achievements.
And this is the reason for this section. If we want to organize legally this coming world we need to have an idea of what we are talking about, of what's at stake.
SOME BOOKS RELATED
Besides those
mentioned above or anywhere else in this page or its subpages, here we include a
non-revised (that is, we haven't read them unless otherwise stated) list of books related to this subject.
Human Enhancement (2009) by
Julian Savulescu (Editor),
Nick Bostrom (Editor) - essays on the human enhancement debate from some of the world’s leading
ethicists, including Nick Bostrom, Julian Savulescu, Norman Daniels,
Eric Jeungst, Michael Sandel, Frances Kamm, John Harris, Erik Parens,
Arthur L. Caplan, Dan W. Brock, Peter Singer, Daniel Wikler, and Anders
Sandberg
Unnatural Selection. The Challenges of Engineering Tomorrow's People
(2008) (Edited By Peter Healey and Steve Rayner ) - Based on a
conference entitled “Tomorrow’s People: the Challenges of
Technologies for Life Extension and Enhancement” which was organized by
the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization at Oxford
University’s Saïd Business School and held in Oxford in 2006. Includes:
Personality Enhancement and Transfer - Bill Bainbridge - Beyond Human
Nature - James Hughes- Postponing Ageing: Re-identifying the Experts? -
Aubrey de Grey - Brain Boosters - Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg
Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime (2007) by
Aubrey de Grey (Author),
Michael Rae (Author)
Neural Basis of Consciousness (Edited by Naoyuki Osaka, Kyoto University)
The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA
Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs (Michael Belfiore, 2009) - The first-ever inside look at DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency—the maverick and controversial group whose futuristic
work has had amazing civilian and military applications, from the
Internet to GPS to driverless cars. -
A conversation with the author -
A video with the author
