io9
Catherine Valente, author of adventure tale The Cities of Coin and Spice, says the singularity isn't about artificial intelligence or nanobots. Instead, that scifi moment at which everything "now" becomes "the future" is personal, too: Valente compares the big Singularity to personal singularities like living as a divorced person when you thought you'd be married forever. She also lays down a much-needed challenge to all those wankers who think the singularity can only come about via specific technologies like artificial intelligence.
Here are a couple of her smartest points:
But the real nature of singularities is that they can't even be predicted. In some sense AI is such an easy answer to what the singularity will be. In actuality it will probably be some advance we can't even think about right now, as incomprehensible as the internet to a potato farmer in 17th century Ireland. He would not even have the tools to begin to understand what it was, let alone, and maybe more importantly, what use anyone could have for it, and why anyone would care. There are potatoes to pull, goddammit, leave me alone with that shit . . .The word singularity is a lie, both in SF and in life. There is no one singularity. You keep pushing through them, and it's fucking terrifying, and fucking amazing. You wake up and one day the USSR is gone and the tech boom crashed and you're divorced and you sell tires instead of playing professional soccer and your toaster wants to talk to you about pork futures and the size of your penis and your sofa wants to have a serious conversation about the works of Vernor Vinge. You wake up and you're making independent movies instead of selling tires and Europe up and got themselves a common currency and you had twin girls when you thought your birth control was top notch and the Supreme Court threw an election and gay marriage is so old-fashioned when there are four sexes and flights to Saturn leave daily.
The Singularity [via Whatever]
Comments
eh, I don't know about this. Read up on Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge and they will give you a better idea of what "singularity" means. It's not one moment or event, it is a point in time where our paradigms have shifted so much we are completely unrecognizable to the previous generation. That is the singularity I am waiting for!
I see a film in Catherine's words, especially the last paragraph. How far are you folks from that FFC ranch?
I agree with the part of Valente's argument that outlines how very problematic this term can be. Unless it's gravitational or mathematical, I cringe when I hear people say "THE Singularity". Do they mean a technological singularity, as do Kurzweil and co.? If so, I can understand that, because that's how the term has thus far most often been used.
However, Valente unfortunately broadens the term "Singularity" further towards meaninglessness. I don't think it's helpful to expand the term to include divorces, etc. There are already more precise words and umpteen conventional metaphors to describe those transitions already.
"THE Singularity" as a term is already too broad and inclusive to be communicatively helpful - besides serving as a fashionable futures-studies "here-be-dragons" buzzword, the term doesn't often clarify any in-depth discussion of the future.
Both futures studies and sci-fi unfold in the parts of the mental landscape which deal with the not-yet-known. I'm glad that IO9 is here to invent new and ridiculous buzzwords to help us speak about the unknowable.
Singularity - I don't buy the argument.
I also don't buy the contention that a 17th century Irish potato farmer is going to be overwhelmed by the internet. He'll definately have a few 'oh wow' moments, but after that (and presuming he can read and write) he'll be off searching for mail order potato planting hardware or potato fertilizer or cheaper sacks to collect his potatos in; then he'll start a blog just prior to opening up an online store for Genuine Irish Potatos...
Humans are very quick to adopt new tools and rarely bother themselves with where it came from, how it was developed or what its social implications are. If they can understand how to use it and it makes life easier, they'll use it.
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