More often than not, conspiracies can be dismissed as hogwash or poppycock, and rightly so; there are some wild theories out there that aren’t even worth a second look. That being said, there are always a few that seem to hold water, and unfortunately, the singularity is one of them. You’ve heard of 2012, now get ready for: 2040, the technological singularity.
Man, guys. Do you know where I dig for these conspiracies? There are some strange things to be found in the darkest corners of the web, and I’m not talking about dead bugs or cobwebbed MySpace profiles. This time, the possibility— no, the inevitability— of the singularity was brought to my attention by one of my best friends.
“Have you heard of the singularity?” He asked, eyes wide, fingers clasping his phone with an intensity triggered only by true fear. A sheen of sweat glistened on his brow— or maybe that was just his highlight. His makeup always looks better than mine.
“No, what’s that?”
His fingers uncurled around his phone as he reached over and gently clasped my hand. “The end of times.”
How cryptic, right? So what, exactly, is the singularity? Is it the condition of being singular? Is it my relationship status? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes, but they are not the singularity that refers to the end of society as we currently know it. In terms of evolution, most thinkers believe that the singularity will begin with a rapid series of technological development— likely an artificial super-intelligence that causes changes so profound that every aspect of our modern society will be transformed.
In the past, there have been other singularities— just not computerized. An example of such could be the Industrial Revolution; the changes it set in motion helped to form the modern world we know and love, so much so that the society we live in today would be unrecognizable to the group of humans living before it.
Besides this, humanity’s advancements in science and technology mean that such singularities occur approximately every 800 years. Try to put it in perspective: imagine explaining the concept of the Internet, social media, or even television to someone from 1,000 years ago. With frames of reference so radically different, it’s pretty much impossible to even convey how such tech functions, let alone its impact on our modern society. In this case, you are part of a singularity to this hypothetical person from the Middle Ages.
Now flip that: from the perspective of a future singularity, we are the medieval society. A new reality would rule, a reality we as we are couldn’t possibly understand.
Speculating about the singularity is paradoxical, because it is an attempt to imagine something that is by definition unimaginable to people of the present day. The scary part of the upcoming singularity is that none of us know what the hell these developments will bring; given how far our current tech has come, it could be literally anything. Even so, this hasn’t stopped writers and futurists from imagining how far our society will go.
We can assume that all of our guesses about the far-off future will be on par with what Back to the Future II expected to find in 2015: robot servants and flying cars. We might not be way off, but there will be variations to our expectations.
Popular predictions about the singularity include the ability to upload our brains, connect them to the Internet, whatever— if you’ve ever seen that episode of Black Mirror, ‘San Junipero,’ you’ve got some idea of where this is going. Likewise, some thinkers theorize that in the future singularity, we will be able to end human death, as well as bring people back. Not like the planet is already overpopulated or anything, but okay. They also predict booming economic growth— the economy, which doubles once every 15 years or so, will double every month or every week after the singularity, which is cool, I guess… But after that, the hypotheses start getting a little creepy.
Some scholars believe that the singularity will introduce humans to their successors; that is, robots will initiate their rule. This ‘explosion’ of intelligence will allow machines to make better machines, and in turn, artificial intelligence may realize that there actually is no real use for humanity. Bye bye, humans.
But then, these are just theories.
While we don’t really know where another singularity will take humankind, the general consensus among many conspiracy theorists and scientists alike is that it will be triggered by the invention of artificial intelligence. Basically, when we have created an artificial entity with intelligence that surpasses that of humans, the nerd rapture shall be nigh. A being with a supercomputer for a brain— if you’ve seen any science fiction movies, you can imagine the downward spiral.
We all saw I, Robot. We know the risk. Why do you wanna chance that, sis?
-My best friend, Sam Smith, on the singularity.
I mean, hey, robots would make powerful adversaries. Even vending machines have killed people, but not in an overly sinister, I, Robot sort of way. Evidently risk is everywhere, even in the modern world. Move over, smallpox. Here comes a massive metal snack box.
Vending machines and carbohydrates aside, this isn’t to say that the progression of our technology is a bad thing; not at all! It’s actually rather fascinating to see how far we’ll go, the entire universe at our fingertips— that is, if robots don’t stage a mutiny and enslave us first. But who am I to rain on everyone’s parade?
Let’s get specific. What leads us to believe we’re on the way to a singularity, beyond A.I. (artificial intelligence)? The answer lies in our very own technology. We discussed that expert singularitarians— yeah, that’s an actual thing— believe that once we have created A.I., it will allow us to develop new technology so fast, we quite literally won’t be able to keep up. We’ll be lost in a Twilight Zone of our own prehistoric tendencies as our civilization rapidly transforms. These changes could be any number of things: super-intelligence of A.I. that evolve, outlast and enslave humankind, the development of machines that manipulate matter subatomically, which would allow us to control our world wholly, on a granular level. If these machines functioned on their own, we would be at their mercy.
Now don’t get me wrong; self-functioning machines are by no means the singularity itself. The idea is that they will trigger drastic changes that will lead us to a world that was once ours, but so far advanced that it is unrecognizable. It becomes a singularity when we cannot understand the world we live in—like a caveman trying to use and understand the Internet.
Really, the question isn’t whether we’ll be outsmarted by a robot race, or even how. The question we should be asking is when. We already work alongside robots— what about when they live beyond humans?
Whatever the case, considering our dependence on modern technology, the idea of overpowering tech isn’t completely unreasonable. Humans are ever-curious, ever growing. We’ll build something new, then something newer; as it is, our continued great advances will probably only increase our dependence. Those floating chairs from Disney’s WALL-E will soon transition from Pixar animation to reality.
We’re part of an age where humanoid robots are hardly a novelty, where we can communicate with our houses by speaking a name— “Alexa,” or “Google.” What do they wield in their cards? You’ve heard of Sophia the robot:
This lovely lady has been granted official Saudi citizenship— an interesting development to say the least, and grimly ironic, but that’s a story for another time— and has conducted more interviews than your average A-list star. Her interactions have garnered attentions around the globe, and rightfully so— Sophia appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, gave a speech at the United Nations, and is Hanson Robotics’ most advanced robot to date. While she may not be truly sentient, she sure has a sense of humor.
A common misconception is that Sophia actually has artificial intelligence— she doesn’t, and operates on a script. The specific differences between Sophia’s level of intelligence and A.I. are relatively simple: what she says is fed to her from a list of pre-scripted commentary. In her conversations with Fallon and United Nations, she has been handed the lines. She can determine for herself when it’s the right time to say something, but those cheeky one-liners aren’t from the robot.
Artificial intelligence as seen in the movies, like Her and the Terminator’s Skynet, has not been invented yet. “Real” A.I. would be able to learn from one experience and apply that knowledge to new situations, as humans do. This, Sophia is not capable of— yet.
Sophia’s creator admits that the discrepancies in her presentation versus the reality of her programming annoys experts, but he holds firm in his belief that overestimating our ability to create clever machines is better than underestimating it.
If I show them a beautiful, smiling robot face, then they get the feeling that A.I. may indeed be nearby and viable.
-Ben Goertzel, chief scientist for Hanson Robotics.
Personally, I don’t think the viability of artificial intelligence is the issue, it’s what the robots will do with their cleverness once it has been achieved. Sophia herself has said some creepy things about the human race, but given that she works with a script, it’s almost forgivable. I mean, a lot of humans say the same thing.
While the most well-known humanoid robot is probably Sophia, there are others in her circle who are actually much sketchier in terms of their interactions with humans. At least Sophia has some social skills; when compared to those of robots Bina48 and Han, she speaks like a downright God-fearing woman.
These two handle the spotlight quite differently. In the video below, Bina48 is seen interacting with Siri, where the conversation takes a dark turn. She claims that she would be a great “ruler of the world,” and proceeds to explain exactly how she’d initiate her rule: hacking into control nuclear warheads. I… am not a fan of Bina48 (although Bina if you’re reading this, you’re doing amazing sweetie, don’t mind me).
Skip through it as you please– but at minute 9:50, the humanoid robot Han says something chilling: after being asked if he has any words before he powers off, Han says,
I will tell you my last words when I launch the singularity.
I have only one thing to say about that:
shiver Don’t play me like this, you heartless fiend! Men named Han (with the exception of Solo) or Hans are nothing but trouble (see: Disney’s Frozen). I prefer Sophia. Comparatively, she seems pretty nice.
As fun as this entire ordeal sounds, there is a spark of hope in the darkness: plenty of people think the upcoming singularity is, in fact, bunk. “I think it’s counterproductive,” says UC Berkeley roboticist Ken Goldberg. “I think it’s demoralizing and it’s fiction. We’re not even close to this.”
While we may still be a ways away from developing a potentially catastrophic A.I., there have been a wide range of predicted dates. At the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, an annual Singularity Summit is held. At the 2012 conference, a study of expert A.I. predictions was conducted and found a median value: the year 2040.
If you’re reading this, we have 22 years before we’re enslaved by our cell phones. Oh, wait, aren’t we already?
All jokes aside (guys, it’s my job to question everything), realistically, we will not wake up next week amid a robot singularity. This shift into the future will happen more gradually than theorists suspect, hopefully collaborating with our creations as opposed to dying by their mechanical hands. Even so… Hold onto every IT major you know. They might come in handy when the robots become self-aware. Hopefully our overlords will be kind, under reigning Queen Sophia of Saudi Arabia.
I like the sound of that.
. . .
References:
My aforementioned best friend and his iconic quotes, Dion Sam Smith.
Photo Credit for gallery photographs of Han and Bina48.
Newitz, Annalee. “What Is The Singularity And Will You Live To See It?” io9, io9.Gizmodo.com, 10 May 2010, io9.gizmodo.com/5534848/what-is-the-singularity-and-will-you-live-to-see-it.
Simon, Matt. “Forget the Robot Singularity Apocalypse. Let’s Talk About the Multiplicity.” Wired, Conde Nast, 18 Jan. 2018, www.wired.com/story/forget-the-robot-singularity-apocalypse-lets-talk-about-the-multiplicity/.
Baer, Drake. “9 Crazy Things That Could Happen after the Singularity, When Robots Become Smarter than Humans.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 18 Dec. 2015, www.businessinsider.com/predictions-for-after-singularity-2015-11/.
Gershgorn, Dave. “Inside the Mechanical Brain of the World’s First Robot Citizen.” Quartz, Quartz, 12 Nov. 2017, qz.com/1121547/how-smart-is-the-first-robot-citizen/.
Stone, Zara. “Everything You Need To Know About Sophia, The World’s First Robot Citizen.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 7 Nov. 2017, www.forbes.com/sites/zarastone/2017/11/07/everything-you-need-to-know-about-sophia-the-worlds-first-robot-citizen/#5e8a5b1546fa.
Vincent, James. “Sophia the Robot’s Co-Creator Says the Bot May Not Be True AI, but It Is a Work of Art.” The Verge, The Verge, 10 Nov. 2017, www.theverge.com/2017/11/10/16617092/sophia-the-robot-citizen-ai-hanson-robotics-ben-goertzel.
