An Argument For The Singularity
Earlier this week, Charles Stross posted his thoughts on why he doesn’t think the Technological Singularity will happen. If you’re not familiar with the concept, the Technological Singularity is defined as that point in the future when a self-improving artificial general intelligence (AGI) achieves superintelligence. As Stross recommends, if you’re not familiar with the topic, you’d be wise to read the following first:
I’m going to take it as read that you’ve read Vernor Vinge’s essay on the coming technological singularity (1993), are familiar with Hans Moravec’s concept of mind uploading, and know about Nick Bostrom’s Simulation argument. If not, stop right now and read them before
you continue with this piece. Otherwise you’re missing out on the fertilizer in which the whole field of singularitarian SF, not to mention posthuman thought, is rooted. It’s probably a good idea to also be familiar with Extropianism and to have read the posthumanism FAQ, because if you haven’t you’ll have missed out on the salient social point that posthumanism has a posse.
First, let me say that Stross is a first-class writer who brings serious thought to bear on a complex and controversial subject. I completely agree with many of his points and I can definitely see how the Singularity may never happen. But as I was reading his arguments, one thought popped out at me. To sum up why I think there’s a reasonable chance the Singularity will happen:
Early on, Stross makes the argument against human-equivalent AI, the building of an intelligence that thinks like us. This is an accomplishment that may never happen due to a number of issues I won’t repeat. Re-read Stross. But then, based on my reading of it anyway, he proceeds with his argument as though human-equivalent AI were the same as human-level AI and they’re not.
We stand on the cusp of a technological explosion that may (or may not) be unprecedented in the history of the universe. Authors such as Ray Kurzweil (The Singularity is Near), James M. Gardner (Biocosm) and Kevin Kelly (What Technology Wants) have discussed this at length. Read them. Based on the long history of self-organizing principles in the universe – what Kelly refers to as exotropy and Max More calls extropy – this technological explosion may well result in an explosion of intelligence as well. Now this may not occur as early as 2045, as Kurzweil has forecast. And potentially, it could happen in the next decade, though I’m skeptical of that time frame. But in geological and cosmological terms, if it happens, it will be in a relative eye blink from now. The resulting growth of intelligence would be comparable to the Cambrian Explosion, that era in Earth’s history when complex life underwent rapid and extensive diversification into many of the morphologies we see today.
My point is that technology needn’t emulate humans in order to be intelligent. We’re one accident in the history of evolution that managed to get it right. (From our perspective, anyway.) Technology is different. Unlike the long, arduous, vertical exchange of information that occurs through sexual recombination, technology moves its best solutions around in a much more free-form, horizontal manner. It’s not unlike the idea of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) which preceded complex life on Earth, explored by microbiologist Carl Woese and others. Historically, this process of technological recombination has required human intelligence as an intermediary, but recently this has started to change.
This, I believe, will eventually lead to a vast array of intelligences. Some will be smarter than us in certain ways, some won’t. Some might seem vaguely familiar; others will be utterly unfathomable. But ultimately these many intelligences will span the domain of possible intelligences to fill every niche in the information ecosphere. The extent of this domain is potentially very large and in it, human intelligence would be a very, very small subset.
Does this mean the Singularity will happen? I don’t know. The Singularity has come to represent different things to different people. Some who need it to fulfill some religious circuit in their brains, see it in quasi-spiritual terms – the so-called “Rapture of the Nerds.” Others believe it will result in a “fast take-off”, leading to an uplift of our own species (and potentially others as well). To myself and others, it’s “just” the development of a superintelligence which may possibly be followed by an explosion of intelligences within our light-cone of the universe. Ultimately, there’s no reason to expect it will result in anything like an entity that cares one iota about us. This is why ideas such as Eliezer Yudkowsky’s “Friendly AI” are really important. Within this domain of possible intelligences, whether vast monolithic superintelligences or distributed networked intelligences or bio-digital amalgams, some will inevitably have enough volition to present an existential threat to the human race unless safeguards are put in place. And even these are no guarantee.
As Vernor Vinge stated in an interview I did with him a few years ago, he thinks “the Singularity is the most likely non-catastrophic event for this century and [he’d] be surprised if it doesn’t happen by 2030.” But whether the Singularity happens or not, I think we have to be prepared for a world in which we are far from the only form of advanced, tool-using, concept-manipulating intelligence. As I stated earlier, “Human-equivalent AI does not equal human-level AI.”
To which I would add: “Nor does it need to be.”