Singularity (Technology)

<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

The Singularity is the idea that humanity will pass through an intense period of evolutionary change. This is the core belief of the ancient apocalypses that embed the Abrahamic religions. Similar to those visions, 20th-century science fiction has often explored how evolutionary change could radically alter life on earth and the nature of humanity. The term singularity proposes that advanced computers, augmented human intelligence, and possibly nanotechnology and robotics will combine make the rate of change so rapid as to make the future unintelligible to un-enhanced humans. A closely related concept is posthumanity.

1 Vernor Vinge
2 Ray Kurzweil
3 Other Works in SF
- 3.1 The 1990s and Beyond
4 External Links and Resources

Vernor Vinge

Beginning with an article published in 1983, and especially in a follow-up 10 years later, computer scientist and SF writer Vernor Vinge outlined the parameters of a new understanding of the kind of evolutionary change. Vinge foresaw two streams of development leading toward a break with the past—the creation of artificial intelligence that would surpass that of humanity, and the augmentation of human intelligence that would create post-humanity. Ever mindful of the risks involved in these two paths to the singularity, Vinge began his 1993 article with these fateful words: "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will end."

At about the same time, the roboticist Hans Moravec was suggesting that within 50 years, computers would have the capabilities equivalent to a human mind, and shortly thereafter, would have the capability of all the humans on the planet. In an essay "Pigs in CyberSpace" (published in the same NASA proceedings as the Vinge paper on the singularity), he noted that, since within a century the entirity of the Earth could be simulated inside a computer, we have no way of knowing whether we ourselves are simulated.

Reference: Vernor Vinge, Vision-21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of CyberSpace (Geoffrey Landis, editor) NASA Conference Publication CP-10129 (1993).

Ray Kurzweil

In contrast to Vinge, the inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil characterizes the singularity as arising from three roots -- the development of genetic engineering, nano-technology and robotics. Kurzweil, particularly in his The Singularity is Near (2005), appears much more optimistic about the nature of the singularity—and believes it will unfold sooner and more swiftly—than does Vinge. In an on-line interview with the editor Gardner Dozois, for example, Kurzweil indicated that he did not believe that super-human artificial intelligence would be antipathetic to humanity. The truth is that we do not know what a super-human AI would be like, nor do we know enough to render a reasonable guess about its attitudes toward human beings.

Other Works in SF

There is a long history, some of it quite distinguished, of science fiction dealing with evolutionary singularity. Perhaps the best work from before World War II is Olaf Stapledon's Odd John (1935), surely one of the best superman novels ever written, and arguably Stapledon's best book. Clifford D. Simak's City (1952), Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human (1953) and Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End (also 1953, a big year for transcendence) all concern the evolutionary leap from humanity as it now exists, and all are essential foundation stones of the field. Gardner Dozois has pointed out that Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night (1948; revised and expanded in 1956 as The City and the Stars) portrays a human society that has survived a singularity that seems to have been the result of both biological and technological development, more than appears to be the case in Simak's City, and so it may well be the first novel to point the way toward the singularity as articulated by Vinge.

The 1990s and Beyond

Following Vinge's 1993 article, the singularity gained increasing attention in science fiction, especially in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine under the editorship of the aforementioned Dozois. (Interestingly enough, Vinge's highly successful SF novels of the 1990s avoided the singularity to a surprising extent.) Australian writer Greg Egan was certainly one of the foremost tillers of this soil in the 1990s; those interested in his work might consult his website. Bruce Sterling, one of the writers most clearly identified with the cyberpunk movement of the 1980s, began his transformation into a post-cyberpunk with the singularitarian novel Holy Fire (1995). Cory Doctorow began selling fiction in 1998 and quickly won a number of awards for his writing about the nature of the singularity and its discontents.

Perhaps the writer who has most successfully sought to convey an impression of what life after the singularity might be like is Charles Stross. His collection of stories Accelerando (2005), most of which were first published in Asimov's, is certain to be seen as central to any discussion of the singularity in the early 21st century. Probably the best anthology surveying the topic is Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, editors, Beyond Singularity (New York: Ace Books, 2005).