# The Singularity: is it total bull? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 15, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308 "2013-10-15T14:50:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/21 "2013-10-15T20:00:16Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > The biggest changes were between 1900 and 1950: electricity, flush toilets, refrigeraters, and medical care. Deep, profound changes. Life went from chaos to stability. (in 1899 every childbirth meant possible death for the mother, and many children died of diseases, food supply was erratic and dependant on the weather) > > Between 1950 and 2000 we got television and the internet. Also deep changes, but not so profound. TV brought us closer together, so racism became unacceptable. Internet makes life much easier, etc, but not as profoundly easy as the refrigerator. > > Between 2000 and 2050–I expect life to get easier, more connected, more robots, etc…But not as profoundly different as the changes my grandparent lived through. Woah…you really think that the changes between 1950 and 2000 were less profound than the changes from 1900-1950?? Seriously? I don’t even know what to say to that, to be honest. ---
**Author:** ![Wanderer124](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Wanderer124](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wanderer124)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/22 "2013-10-15T20:09:17Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Life ain’t gonna change much in the next 50 years. This is a somewhat separate debate but I feel the need to address this. Whether or not a singularity-type event occurs in the next 50 years, things are going to change tremendously. First off, genetics. In a few years, genome sequencing will be cheap enough that it will be available for nearly everyone - making people aware of preexisting conditions, likelihood of getting certain cancers, which vitamins and nutrients you need to supplement, etc. Basically medicine will become way more personalized. In 5 decades, it’s feasible that genetic re engineering will be widely available, totally rewriting the rules when it comes to aging and the luck-of-the-draw system we are currently stuck with. Secondly, integrated computers and robotics. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but computers are starting to show up everywhere. 50 years from now, this trend will have only continued. Smart surfaces and roads, water delivery systems that actively sense faults in pipes, drones that deliver packages across cities, smart energy systems that know where energy is needed most and so on. You don’t seem to understand the importance of self-driving cars either. They will transform society in innumerable ways - the least of which is the amount of deaths they will prevent. Once all cars on the road are self driving (50 years seems a safe bet), traffic jams will disappear, roads will need to be restructured, entire industries will collapse or rise based on this one technology. And I haven’t even gotten to 3d printers, brain computer interfaces or virtual reality. Needless to say, it’s gonna be a wild ride. ---
**Author:** ![TheSeaOtter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@TheSeaOtter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheSeaOtter)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/23 "2013-10-15T20:15:36Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > There’s an old saying: Both a computer and a person can win a great game of chess.But only a person can enjoy it. ‘Enjoyment’ is just a word for the release of certain neurotransmitters involved in a brain’s reward mechanisms. It’s nothing a computer can’t be programmed to do. There’s really not much difference between “I choose to do things that I think will make me happy” and “The computer selects options that it projects will maximize the value of this variable.” I think a strong AI is absolutely possible. Will it’s existence lead to a magical post-scarcity age of immortality? Probably not. I mean, we’re talking about building something as smart as a human. We already have things as smart as humans - they’re called humans, and the planet is covered with 'em. It might be able to build something else that’s smarter than a human, but we already have those, too. They’re called universities, research hospitals, and laboratories. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/24 "2013-10-15T20:16:25Z")
> [@XT](#): > > No more than, oh, say the last 50 years. 😛 Trust me, when you actually sit down and think about it, the change is pretty profound, and I see nothing to indicate it’s going to slow down…quite the opposite, really. Contrary opinion [here](http://newamerica.net/node/29013). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/25 "2013-10-15T20:21:45Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Why do you think it won’t help you make small talk? I see what you did there. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/26 "2013-10-15T20:24:16Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It would take a strong, Turing-tested AI to do it convincingly. Eliza did fool Weizenbaum’s secretary. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/27 "2013-10-15T20:34:30Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > The biggest changes were between 1900 and 1950: electricity, flush toilets, refrigeraters, and medical care. Deep, profound changes. Life went from chaos to stability. (in 1899 every childbirth meant possible death for the mother, and many children died of diseases, food supply was erratic and dependant on the weather) In 1962 at age 45 my father had a blood clot in his leg, and spent over a month in the hospital where they just basically observed him and gave him blood thinners. In 2007, at age 90, my father had another blood clot near his heart. They put in a double stent through his leg, not through his chest, and he was released in 2 days. Yeah, from 1900 to 1950 they discovered basic drugs. Now we have specialized drugs, that do things like handle A Fib. They did microsurgery and wrapped a band around my wife’s retina. They tried to reboot my heart. And we’ll do more. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/28 "2013-10-15T20:39:05Z")
> [@Wanderer124](#): > > Right, but Kurzweil’s argument is that we are going to get a more sophisticated understanding of the human brain, and through that understanding be able to engineer AI’s based on our neurological architecture. This is his justification for saying that AI research will take such a big leap in the near future. > > Now, the issue with this is that there is no certainty that we will have a full understanding of the workings of the human brain in the next 50 years, let alone the next 20. However, if you allow for the possibility of a full working model of the human brain, Strong AI becomes a much more realistic possibility. Having worked in simulation a lot, I think we are going to simulate the brain long before we develop AI. Some work on simulating the brains of simple creatures is already beginning. But at best this will give us a platform to see how certain changes to brain wiring will affect the response, something we can’t do with wetware. It is not at all clear that a working model of neurons and their connections will directly tell us how intelligence works, let alone direct us on how to create intelligence through means other than simulation. ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/29 "2013-10-15T23:34:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Food, or energy. I recall in James Howard Kunstler’s [_Too Much Magic,_](http://www.amazon.com/Too-Much-Magic-Thinking-Technology/dp/0802121446) he was at a conference with some computer scientists speculating on the idea that a strong AI might want to do a Skynet and eliminate/replace the human race. Kunstler asked, “But, then, where would its electric power come from?” Stumped 'em – of course there are conceivable answers, but the point is that the question had never even occurred to these experts before; they had always thought of electricity as something that just comes out of the wall. I would just like to point out that Skynet itself had humanoid robots perfectly capable of running human-built power stations. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/30 "2013-10-16T00:32:14Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Porn may get more better, too…but when you want to really want to make love, you’re gonna have to have learned people skills . . . Or cash. Cash is timeless. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/31 "2013-10-16T00:36:19Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Woah…you really think that the changes between 1950 and 2000 were less profound than the changes from 1900-1950?? Seriously? I don’t even know what to say to that, to be honest. The PC is indeed an epochal, daily-life-changing, singularitarian innovation – but far less so than the mass-produced automobile, or, for that matter, the radio, on which television is but an improvement. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/32 "2013-10-16T00:39:41Z")
On a long enough timeline it seems inevitable that manmade technologies will surpass our biological brains for problem solving, general intelligence, pattern recognition and whatever else is considered a ‘valuable cognitive skill’ for lack of a better term. My problem with Kurzweil is that due to his fear of death he pegs the nanobot revolution for when he will be in his 70s, and the singularity for when he will be in his 90s. He made his predictions for when he would die of old age. I don’t agree with his timeline. As of 2013 (almost 2014) nanotechnology does not seem anywhere near where Kurzweil claims it will be in the late 2020s. He says nanotech in the late 2020s will consist of billions (if not trillions) of self propelled robots communicating with each other and performing complex biological repairs and upgrades. As of yet do we have anything like that? Not really, not from what I know. The idea that we will figure that out (both how to make the nanobots and figure out how they can perform repairs), and manage to get FDA approval (these could be hacked after all, and letting them into your bloodstream can be dangerous), and saturate the market enough that nanobots become affordable (it takes 10-20 years for a technology to go from first generation to affordable to the masses in the developed world. Cell phones, electric cars, DVD players, etc all require early users to pay heavy prices and work out the bugs) all in the next 15 years seems unlikely. I’d guess the nanotech revolution may not happen for 20-30 years after Kurzweil’s predictions. No idea about his strong AI predictions. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/33 "2013-10-16T00:39:58Z")
[Nanotech](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nanotechnology), at any rate, while it might develop practical uses, does seem to be rather a dead end for singularity-purposes. “No, you don’t get it. You are still in a pretend world where atoms go where you want because your computer program directs them to go there.” – Richard Smalley to K. Eric Drexler > [@](#): > > The popular conception of nanotechnology is K. Eric Drexler’s concept of nanobots, like industrial robots scaled down a billion times. This is entirely made of bollocks and would violate physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics.[3][1] However, not many people realise why it’s bollocks, as it isn’t really due to us limiting what our technology might one day do, it’s purely down to the physics of how the world works. > > The rules of mechanics don’t scale evenly with size — consider surface to volume ratios, which are why the energy consumed by small rodents per unit of mass is different than that for elephants, and why the aerodynamics of a Boeing 747 are different to a small 747-shaped toy. At the molecular level, the world is considerably different to macro scale. A solvent like water would feel more like treacle, and anything floating in it would be at the mercy of brownian motion that would make even the strongest rip currents look quite weak. > > That Drexler has pushed an idea which is actually impossible has not deterred nanotech fans, who get as upset as they usually do when an expert in a field they’re talking about points out they’re simply wrong, apparently from an emotional sunk cost fallacy. > > Transhumanists also routinely casually throw biology out the window, but with nanobot advocacy they manage the same contempt for chemistry and physics. (Michael Anissimov of SIAI advocates Digital Rights Management as the way to control dangerous science woo nanotechnology[4], thus also casually throwing mathematics out the window.) In cryonics, “but, nanobots!” is the standard answer to any objection. Some cryonics advocates are finally pointing out that this is not quite rational.[5] > > Advocates of nanotech woo often tag life “soft nanotech”, as if that makes “hard nanotech” (woo) merely unrealised rather than impossible. This is in reference to the fact that such “hard” nano-tech seems to imply solid, robot-like structures (made of diamond, for example) while “soft” is closer to more malleable molecular structures. It’s a bit like calling speech “soft telepathy” to imply that “hard telepathy” is a difference of degree, rather than kind. > > Since real scientists have entered the field of nanotechnology and started using the term for things that do not defy physics, Dr. Drexler has taken to using his new favored terms, “zettatechnology”[6] or “atomic precision manufacture.”[7] ---
**Author:** ![JM\_Hanes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6a8cbe/32.png) [@JM\_Hanes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JM_Hanes)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/34 "2013-10-16T00:48:26Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Woah…you really think that the changes between 1950 and 2000 were less profound than the changes from 1900-1950?? That reminds me of a question putatively posed to an elder in my family, after Neil Armstrong stepped out of the Apollo 11 spacecraft. “When you were young, would you have believed it, if someone told you a man would walk on the moon in your lifetime?” He replied, “I’d have believed that before I believed someone who told me I’d ever take a crap inside the house.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/35 "2013-10-16T01:19:09Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > On a long enough timeline it seems inevitable that manmade technologies will surpass our biological brains for problem solving, general intelligence, pattern recognition and whatever else is considered a ‘valuable cognitive skill’ for lack of a better term. Assuming that is **possible.** Some things are not. On a long enough timeline, there probably will never be a FTL drive or a transporter beam. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/36 "2013-10-16T01:51:32Z")
Not total bull itself. But anyone who tells me anything about how it’s coming and how amazing it will be with a great sense of certainty may get this look: :dubious: > [@JM\_Hanes](#): > > That reminds me of a question putatively posed to an elder in my family, after Neil Armstrong stepped out of the Apollo 11 spacecraft. “When you were young, would you have believed it, if someone told you a man would walk on the moon in your lifetime?” He replied, “I’d have believed that before I believed someone who told me I’d ever take a crap inside the house.” 😃 When my granddad was near the end of his life, I thought to myself: Here’s a man who, less than 2 miles from the place he was born, is living in as different a world as if he had been abducted by space aliens. Now, \*some \*of what made his world alien happened mostly in the first half of his life and then plateaued, \*some \*was more or less the same or barely gradual all through the first half and then took off in the second half. But I knew that to him, in his life, the world-changing transformation was social (and came from FDR and his local protegé Muñoz Marín). Technology was just tools and of course smart enough people would come up with really nifty, awesome tools; but tools all the same. ---
**Author:** ![JM\_Hanes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6a8cbe/32.png) [@JM\_Hanes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JM_Hanes)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/37 "2013-10-16T03:44:07Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Technology was just tools and of course smart enough people would come up with really nifty, awesome tools; but tools all the same. I think it would, however, be difficult to overstate the impact of computerization & the internet, both technologically and socially – the former being the _sine qua non_ of developing AI, as I (very superficially) understand the Singularity. The difference between believers and skeptics probably starts right out with “Once we develop strong AI” vs “If we do or can develop it.” For my uninitiated part, I don’t see how you could successfully “program” AI with qualities like inventiveness, imagination, empathy, commitment, intuition, etc. – all key signifiers of human potential – when they are so immensely variable among individuals to begin with. Just picture the conclave charged with reaching consensus on what the ideal brain to be used as a template might look like! I assume such issues have probably been explored in depth elsewhere, but I wonder if anyone has explicitly defined the point at which the simulation of a brain could be said to be a brain itself. Is the end game an AI which is demonstrably superior to human intelligence in some/every way, or one which simply has the capacity to exterminate human life and move on? In any case, given the primitive state of modern science in relation to the complexity of the undertaking, I’d measure any putatively limited time we’ve got left in centuries, not decades. I really intended to audit this thread in order to learn more about it all, till the oldies but goodies thing started taking on substance! Probably should have stuck with Plan A. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/38 "2013-10-16T03:58:55Z")
> [@JM\_Hanes](#): > > I think it would, however, be difficult to overstate the impact of computerization & the internet, both technologically and socially – But, far less than that of the automobile. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/39 "2013-10-16T04:25:03Z")
I agree that it’s become a pseudo-religion to some, but many of the counter-arguments don’t pass muster IMO either. e.g. > [@Richard Smalley (via BrainGlutton)](#): > > At the molecular level, the world is considerably different to macro scale. A solvent like water would feel more like treacle, and anything floating in it would be at the mercy of brownian motion that would make even the strongest rip currents look quite weak. > > That Drexler has pushed an idea which is actually impossible has not deterred nanotech fans, who get as upset as they usually do when an expert in a field they’re talking about points out they’re simply wrong, apparently from an emotional sunk cost fallacy. If it’s really impossible Smalley really hasn’t shown it with this argument. Nature has found many ways to cope with (and take advantage of), phenomena such as Brownian motion and do useful work. > [@](#): > > Advocates of nanotech woo often tag life “soft nanotech”, as if that makes “hard nanotech” (woo) merely unrealised rather than impossible. This is in reference to the fact that such “hard” nano-tech seems to imply solid, robot-like structures (made of diamond, for example) while “soft” is closer to more malleable molecular structures Firstly, it’s weaseling to say “Well, OK, it’s possible, but you implied hard structures, _that’s_ impossible!”. But secondly, he hasn’t shown that it’s impossible to perform this kind of function with hard structures anyway. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Assuming that [surpassing the human mind] is possible. Some things are not. One system that I know would solve most problems quicker than 1 Mijin, is 2 Mijins. While it’s debatable whether such scaling technically counts as “surpassing” the human mind, the end result is the same: AI would bring a massive increase in how quickly humanity can solve problems and invent solutions. But that’s worst case. IMO there is huge scope for making something “smarter” than a human, and it will happen virtually overnight (after we make something as “smart” as a human). ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308/40 "2013-10-16T04:50:36Z")
> [@](#): > > I think it would, however, be difficult to overstate the impact of computerization & the internet, both technologically and socially > [@](#): > > But, far less than that of the automobile. Computerization lets us buy from Amazon in 1 minute, instead of using a snail-mail catalogue which takes 3 weeks. Nice, but not revolutionary.Without it, modern life and commerce without it is stll possible, just less convenient. The automobile (actually, the 18-wheel truck) was revolutionary.Without it, modern life and commerce would be impossible. It’s easy to get excited about the newest innovation (the internet), while forgetting about the older innovations. The older innovations (mostly , as I said in post #15, between 1900 and 1950) were more important and more revolutionary—but they seem less exciting. We have become so used to them that we no longer notice them. Without the internet, our lives would be different. Without flush toilets, our lives would be impossible. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-singularity-is-it-total-bull/671308.md?page=3)