Marty's Singularity Blog
The Singularity is happening now!
June 28, 2010 at 4:38 am
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Let’s start this blog by giving credit where it is due. Perhaps the man most associated with the concept of the coming Singularity is Ray Kurzweil. He has authored several books, made many speaking engagements, and maintains a web site all dedicated to exploring the Singularity. In his book The Singularity Is Near, he describes the concept like this:
What, then, is the Singularity? It’s a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed. Although neither utopian nor dystopian, this epoch will transform the concepts that we rely on to give meaning to our lives, from our business models to the cycle of human life, including death itself.
This book was published in 2006. It is a massive work, well written and extraordinarily well-documented, so most of it must have been written in the prior year or earlier. As I write this it is now June 2010. The first decade of the 21st Century has drawn to a close. Since I read this book in 2007 I have been trying to keep up with the events of the day relating to the Singularity. I have become convinced that we are now in the beginning stages of this period and that it will unfold with increasing speed and increasing impact over the next twenty years or so. When we look back at 2010 from 2030 we will be amazed at the changes that have occurred. Do you doubt this? Imagine you had been living in Italy, even in Florence, in the 1300’s. Would you have been aware that something later called the Renaissance was beginning to happen all around you? Even if you had been aware that something was happening, would you have had any inkling of how extraordinary it was? Could you have foreseen its eventual impact, leading to the Enlightenment, the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, and our modern civilization itself?
Part of my reason for writing this blog to bring these ideas to the notice of as many people as possible. This is the key movement of our age. All the issues that command the attention of the media and most of the human race – wars, politics, economics, etc. – pale into insignificance when compared to the Singularity. Yet probably far less than 1% of the population is even aware of the term let alone has a grasp of its meaning.
In future posts I will be discussing the history of the Singularity concept, the people associated with it, the past and current technological changes that have led to my conclusion that it is now underway, the possible outcomes, and anything else that I see as associated and that strikes my fancy. It’s going to be an amazing ride and it’s just getting started.
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Kendra
This is all completely new to me. Once again, I will be learning from you, and I look forward to the journey.