The Singularity Has Arrived
Vernor Vinge, award-winning science fiction author, predicted the Technological Singularity back in 1993. Photo: WIRED Magazine
“The United Nations' human rights chief has called on member states to put a moratorium on the sale and use of artificial intelligence systems until the "negative, even catastrophic" risks they pose can be addressed.”
-NPR 9.16.2021
One definition of ‘SMART’ according to the Merriam Webster dictionary is: having or showing a high degree of mental ability. If that’s true, then my iPhone is smarter than I am. After all, it’s called a smart phone for a good reason. Increasingly, I rely on its AI assistant, Siri, to find information I either flat out don’t know, or have forgotten. Like yesterday, which turned out to be a watershed moment for me.
“Hey Siri,” I said, “who painted American Gothic?” Instantly, its female voice replied “Grant Wood painted American Gothic.” I didn’t have to say, “Thank you,” but I did. Old habits die hard.
And then it hit me—The Singularity has arrived.
Predicted in The coming technological singularity: How to survive in the post-human era, a 1993 essay written by award-winning science fiction writer and former science and mathematics professor, Vernor Vinge, the singularity is “…a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization.”
In his essay, Vinge points out that, “The acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this century. I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.”
Vinge believed that, “…the creation of greater than human intelligence will occur during the next thirty years…ushering in the end of the human era.” His 30-year deadline occurs in 2023, merely two years away.
I doubt that Vinge could have anticipated that only 2 years later, in 1995, Netscape’s graphical browser would open the internet to the world and exponentially accelerate the development and deployment of AI into nearly every aspect of human life—fulfilling his prediction.
“Wires in. Wires out.,” an old friend once warned me about our digital age. Meaning that our access to information and communications online is a two-way connection—to get the info, we willingly end up sharing our own information. Our smart phones have conditioned us to accept an all knowing and pervasive AI. We’re addicted to it, and like most addicts, we don’t care about anything but the next fix.
Into a world with so many life-threatening challenges, the Singularity has arrived. Will super intelligent AI save us, or hasten the end of the human experiment?
Stand by. A writer somewhere is working on the book.
—Stephen Newton