The Technological Singularity

written by Stainless

So what is the Singularity? You may have heard the term in popular media.

Think of it like this.

Currently, we have teams of designers making our technology. They lay out the pathways, they crunch the numbers, and they set forth the schematics to be created at a microprocessor factory (Commonly called a foundry).

True that they are aided by computers, but there is a still a human coming up with the plans, making the innovations.

What if the computers could do all the work without the humans? What if a computer could create a more advanced computer, which would in turn create a more advanced computer and so on?

Eventually it will reach a point where we wouldn’t understand, couldn’t understand, what was being created.

Machines making machines making machines. We see the signs already. Factories are automated. Simple robots perform tasks that men would do, before the microprocessor revolution.

Tech giants are debuting their so called “Smartcar” self-driving systems. Where will this leave the truck- driver? The taxi-driver? Will they be left in the dust like the factory workers of old?

From the development of the “spinning jenny”, an automation of the textile creation usually done by hand, we have started on a march to irrelevance.

If our technology progresses enough -and if current trends continue it will- how far will machines put working people out of a job?

The singularity should be a terrifying concept for anyone who looks at the world. A concept of humanity reduced.

Even now we see the patient robots of the automobile factories putting swaths of American workers out of a living.

What need does a robot have for rest? For wages?

If unchecked, only two classes of people will remain: Those who repair the machines, and those who create things that are so-far outside the realm of computation. Art and fiction, the realms of the mind.

Given a long enough timeframe even this will fall away, as greater and greater learning computers begin to mimic the patterns of the mind. Some would call them soul-less, but what difference does it make.

Where does it leave us, the many? The legion of people looking to make their way in the world? It leaves us in near-uselessness.

If the great thinking machines of the future reach a similar conclusion, then I fear for our children’s children. The horrors they may face.

Fiction like the terminator may not be fiction for much longer, if left unchecked.

The only solution is a return to honest labor, to a hard days toil without the yoke of convenience.

Reliance on technology to do a human’s job will lead us down this path, unless we find a way to balance with nature. To regain our stature and respect for the planet. This is not a certainty yet, but heed it as a warning.

Beware the unshackled march of the machines.