There
is no question that technological growth trends in science and industry
are increasing exponentially. There is, however, a growing debate about
what this runaway acceleration of ingenuity may bring. A number of
respected scientists and futurists now are predicting that
technological progress is driving the world toward a “Singularity” – a
point at which technology and nature will have become one. At this
juncture, the world as we have known it will have gone extinct and new
definitions of “life,” “nature” and “human” will take hold.
“We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life
on Earth,” San Diego University Professor of Computer Science Vernor
Vinge first warned the scientific community in 1993. “Within 30 years,
we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence.
Shortly after, the human era will end.”
Some scientists and philosophers have theorized that the very
purpose of life is to bring about the Singularity. While leading
technology industries have been aware of the Singularity concept for
some time, there are concerns that, if the public understood the full
ramifications of the Singularity, they would be reluctant to accept
many of the new and untested technologies such as genetically
engineered foods, nano-technology and robotics.
Machine Evolution
A number of books on the coming Singularity are in the works and will soon appear. In 2003, the sequel to the blockbuster film The Matrix will delve into the philosophy and origins of Earth’s machine-controlled future. Matrix cast members were required to read Wired editor Kevin Kelly’s 1994 book Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-biological Civilization. Page one reads, “The realm of the born – all that is nature – and the
realm of the made – all that is humanly constructed – are becoming
one.”
Meanwhile, Warner Brothers has embarked on the most expensive film of all time – a $180 million sequel called Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. The film is due out in 2003; a good decade before actual machine
evolution is predicted to accelerate “out of control,” plunging human
civilization towards the Singularity.
Central to the workings of the Singularity are a number of “laws”
- one of which is known as Moore’s Law. Intel Corp. cofounder Gordon E.
Moore noted that the number of transistors that could fit on a single
computer chip had doubled every year for six years from the beginnings
of integrated circuits in 1959. Moore predicted that the trend would
continue, and it has – although the doubling rate was later adjusted to
an 18-month cycle.
Today, millions of circuits are found on a single miniscule
computer chip and technological “progress” is accelerating at an
exponential rather than a linear growth rate.
Stewart Brand, in his book The Clock of the Long Now,
discusses another law – Monsanto’s Law – which states that the ability
to identify and use genetic information doubles every 12 to 24 months.
This exponential growth in biological knowledge is transforming
agriculture, nutrition and healthcare in the emerging life-sciences
industry.
In 2005, IBM plans to introduce “Blue Gene,” a computer that can
perform one million-billion calculations-per-second – about 1/20th the
power of the human brain. This computer could transmit the entire
contents of the Library of Congress in less than two seconds. According
to Moore’s Law, computer hardware will surpass human brainpower in the
first decade of this century. Software that emulates the human mind -
“artificial intelligence” – may take a few more years to evolve.
Reaching Infinity
The human population also is experiencing tremendous exponential
population growth. Dan Eder, a scientist at the Boeing Artificial
Intelligence Center, notes that “human population growth over the past
10,000 years has been following a hyperbolic growth trend… with the
asymptote [or the point of near-infinite increase] located in the year
2035 AD.” An infinite number of humans is, of course, impossible.
Scientists predict our numbers will hover around 9 billion by
mid-century.
Eder points out that the predicted rise of artificial intelligence
coincides with the asymptote of human population growth. He speculates
that artificial life could begin to multiply exponentially once
biological life has met its finite limits.
Scientists are debating not so much if it will happen, but what
discovery will set off a series of Earth-altering technologic events.
They suggest that advancements in the fields of nanotechnology or the
discovery of artificial intelligence could usher in the Singularity.
Technologic Globalization
Physicists, mathematicians and scientists like Vernor Vinge and Ray
Kurzweil have identified through their accelerated technological change
theories the likely boundaries of the Singularity and have predicted
with confidence the effects leading up to it over the next couple of
decades.
The majority of people closest to these theories and laws – the
tech sector – can hardly wait for the Singularity to arrive. The true
believers call themselves “extropians,” “post-humans” and
“transhumanists” and are actively organizing not just to bring the
Singularity about, but to counter what they call “techno-phobes” and
“neo-luddites” – critics like Greenpeace, Earth First! and the
Rainforest Action Network.
The Progress Action Coalition [Pro-Act, www.progressaction.org],
which was formed in June 2001, fantasizes about “the dream of true
artificial intelligence… adding a new richness to the human landscape
never before known.” The Pro-Act website features several sections
where the strategies and tactics of environmental groups and
foundations are targeted for “countering.”
Pro-Act, AgBioworld, Biotechnology Progress, Foresight Institute,
the Progress Freedom Foundation and other industry groups that desire
accelerated scientific progress acknowledge that the greatest threat to
technologic progress comes not just from environmental groups, but from
a small faction of the scientific community – where one voice stands
out.
The Warning
In April 2000, a wrench was thrown into the arrival of the Singularity
by an unlikely source – Sun Microsystems’ Chief Scientist Bill Joy. Joy
co-founded Sun Microsystems, helped create the Unix computer operating
system and developed the Java and Jini software systems – systems that
helped give the Internet “life.”
In a now-infamous cover story in Wired magazine, “Why
the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” Joy warned of the dangers posed by
developments in genetics, nanotechnology and robotics. Joy’s warning of
the impacts of exponential technologic progress run amok gave new
credence to the coming Singularity. Unless things change, Joy
predicted, “We could be the last generation of humans.” Joy has warned
that “knowledge alone will enable mass destruction” and termed this
phenomenon “knowledge-enabled mass destruction” (KMD).
The Times of London compared Joy’s statement to Einstein’s 1939 letter to President Roosevelt, which warned of the dangers of the nuclear bomb.
The technologies of the 20th century gave rise to nuclear,
biological and chemical (NBC) technologies that, while powerful,
require access to vast amounts of raw (and often rare) materials,
technical information and large-scale industries. The 21st century
technologies of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (GNR) however,
will require neither large facilities nor rare raw materials.
The threat posed by GNR technologies becomes further amplified by
the fact that some of these new technologies have been designed to be
able to “replicate” – i.e., they can build new versions of themselves.
Nuclear bombs did not sprout more bombs and toxic spills did not grow
more spills. If the new self-replicating GNR technologies are released
into the environment, they could be nearly impossible to recall or
control.
Globalization and Singularity
Joy understands that the greatest dangers we face ultimately stem from
a world where global corporations dominate – a future where much of the
world has no voice in how the world is run. The 21st century GNR
technologies, he writes, “are being developed almost exclusively by
corporate enterprises. We are aggressively pursuing the promises of
these new technologies within the now-unchallenged system of global
capitalism and its manifold financial incentives and competitive
pressures.”
Joy believes that the system of global capitalism, combined with
our current rate of progress, gives the human race a 30 to 50 percent
chance of going extinct around the time the Singularity happens. “Not
only are these estimates not encouraging,” he adds, “but they do not
include the probability of many horrid outcomes that lie short of
extinction.”
Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen contends that
if chemists earlier in the last century had decided to use bromine
instead of chlorine to produce commercial coolants (a mere quirk of
chemistry), the ozone hole over Antarctica would have been far larger,
would have lasted all year and would have severely affected life on
Earth. “Avoiding that was just luck,” stated Crutzen.
It is very likely that scientists and global corporations will
miss key developments (or, worse, actively avoid discussion of them). A
whole generation of biologists has left the field for the biotech and
nanotech labs. As biologist Craig Holdredge, who has followed biotech
since its early beginnings in the 1970s, warns: The science of “biology
is losing its connection with nature.”
Yet there is something missing from this discussion of the
technologic singularity. The true cost of technologic progress and the
Singularity will mean the unprecedented decline of the planet’s
inhabitants – an ever-increasing rate of global extinction.
The World Conservation Union (IUCN), the International Botanical
Congress and a majority of the world’s biologists believe that a global
“mass extinction” already is underway. As a direct result of human
activity (resource extraction, industrial agriculture, the introduction
of non-native animals and population growth), up to one-fifth of all
living species – mostly in the tropics – are expected to disappear
within 30 years. “The speed at which species are being lost is much
faster than any we’ve seen in the past – including those related to
meteor collisions,” University of Tennessee biodiversity expert Daniel
Simberloff told the Washington Post.
A 1998 Harris poll of the 5,000 members of the American Institute
of Biological Sciences found 70 percent believed that what has been
termed “The Sixth Extinction” is now underway. A simultaneous Harris
poll found that 60 percent of the public were totally unaware of the
impending biological collapse.
At the same time that nature’s ancient biological creation is on
the decline, artificial laboratory-created bio-tech life forms -
genetically modified tomatoes, genetically engineered salmon, cloned
sheep – are on the rise. Already more than 60 percent of food in US
grocery stores contain genetically engineered ingredients – and that
percentage is rising.
Nature and technology are not just evolving: They are competing
and combining with one another. Ultimately there could be only one
winner.
Resources
James Bell is a writer for Sustain, a national environmental information group based in Chicago [www.sustain.info].This article is excerpted from his forthcoming book. For more information visit www.technologicalsingularity.info or contact jamesbell@sustainusa.org. An earlier version of this article was published in the Samhain (November/December 2001) issue of the Earth First! Journal. (c) 2001 by James Bell.
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