Is the Singularity Killing Science Fiction?
io9′s Charlie Anders reports on Worldcon’s ”The Singularity: Are We Getting Any Closer?” panel.
Some highlights:
Wilson pointed out that if the Singularity really is coming, then it’s inevitable — so there’s no need for people to be cheerleaders for it. He compared it to “telepathy or dianetics,” science-fictional ideas which some people adopted “with religious fervor.” A core question in science fiction is “where is our technology going, and what can we do with it,” noted Wilson. “The Singularity is just one answer.”
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“The question I sometimes ask myself is, How would the Singularity work in Darfur?” says Wilson.
Interesting stuff, and questions well worth asking even if you’re not a Sci-Fi fan. Me? The only sci-fi stuff I read tends to either be so near-future that calling it Sci-Fi is just pointles genre-pigeonholing (like say Spook Country ) or transhumanist stuff. But, by and large that’s because tranhumanist-themed books seem to be where the heirs to Cyberpunk ended up.
I’d like to know *why* it’s thought to be a certainty in the first place- surely there’s more to it than the end of the Mayan Long Count calender in 2012 (an event no different than, say, the Gregorian calender flipping over from December to January- the cycle repeats, rather than ending). I haven’t found anything that can definitively tell me why so many seem to think this is so. I tend to agree with: [[http://grinding.be/2008/11/17/have-i-told-you-about-how-nerds-destroy-the-world-no-joke/]]
-in that it’s a way for people to make obsessive techno-fetishism seem spiritual and serving “something” higher, whatever that might be. Maybe transhumanism is on the rise- that’s actually something, and it’s an interesting topic. I just don’t understand why it’s thought to be such a magical development rather than a natural progression.
The Singularity makes as much sense to me as the “space opera” of Scientology- both are pie-in-the-sky and based on nothing, so far as I can tell, other than wishful thinking and a desire to have “something” make us “better” rather than taking up the onus for self-improvement ourselves. It’s gonna be a long 3 years.
Actually Vernor Vinge the man that first theorised the singularity has covered this.
Essentially the singularity is one of four possible futures that a technological society can take. The others being, stagnation, destruction or slow decline.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0696.html
The singularity may not occur (no one can accurately predict the future) but it is far from pie in the sky.
The technological Singularity has jack all to do with Timewave Zero/the Mayan Long Count Calendar/2012 unless you’re playing Shadowrun.
I’d also argue that there are other outcomes possible other than the four Kurzweil posits, but that’s a good start. We are very likely to reach a point where technological advancement results in some radical societal change on a very fast timetable. I’ve argued against the eschatological version of the Singularity elsewhere on here, but I can’t deny the extreme likelihood of some series of technological developments turning over the apple cart for good or ill.
That said, amongst other issues I have with the “Singularity is Dead” meme, there seems to be a conflation of Transhumansism and the Singularitry. And you can definitely have Transhumanism without a singularity scenario. Though they do go together like chocolate and peanut butter.