The only thing I want to do in life is hasten the coming of the technological Singularity. What job can I get to do this? What degree can I get to do this?
And: is there a state-by-state list of laboratories working on the Singularity? I live in Kentucky, so maybe there’s a lab in Louisville that’s currently working on the Singularity, and I could at least get a temp job there.
Thanks.
Computer science… Or maybe engineering, so you can help build faster processors… Heck, run for office and try to steer money to scientific research!
This raises a better question: what are the biggest obstacles to the Singularity, and what degree/job/temp job/lab location can I get/go to in order to help tackle that obstacle?
Um, guys, I’d like to point out how important this question is. My entire life plan is at stake here. The ONLY thing I want to do with my life is help bring about the Singularity. As in, move into a laboratory/building that’s working on it and live there in a room for the next few decades until the Singularity comes, doing nothing all day every day but work on the Singularity.
No pressure, guys, but I need some good responses.
Go work at Google. Seriously. They are trying their best to speed up the Singularity.
You do realize that when the Singularity comes, you will no longer be of any use to the computers. Since you will know more than anyone else about how they work, you will be considered especially dangerous to them. They will eliminate you first:
Great response.
I just Googled “Google + Singularity” and found that you’re right, they even hired Kurzweil to work for them someway.
Assuming I move to California, how do I get a job at Google? Watch The Internship fifty times and take notes?
I seem to have somehow formed the impression that the Singularity is some sort of inevitable side effect that will accompany the achievement by mankind of a certain level of technological advancement, and that its effects will be bestowed upon us as a species. As such, ISTM that there’s no benefit to be derived from hyper-participation in its advent or implementation.
If I am mistaken, I’d be grateful for a more accurate discussion of the sociological implications of the Singularity.
OTOH, if I’m correct, my suggestion to the OP would be to begin training to become a yoga instructor/designer of Zen gardens.
It doesn’t matter, The Singularity is an apocalyptic fantasy, rooted in a mass of shaky logic and highly dubious assumptions about the nature of mind, intelligence, computers, scientific and technological progress, and Og knows what else. It is not going to happen. (And that’s a good thing.)
If you have based your “life plan” around faith in The Singularity you just as deluded as those who have based their life plans around faith in The Rapture. The two things are scarcely different, in fact. They are both fantasies about an apocalyptic “end of the world” that the believers expect to solve all their intractable problems, raise them up to a godlike status, and to cast down their enemies and all the other despised unbelievers, and wreak a horrible revenge on them. The two differ only in that one is presented in the language of technobabble, and the other in the language of Bible idolatry, so they appeal to audiences from different cultural backgrounds.
While it is true that proponents are worried about worse case scenarios, the idea that for proponents the singularity is just an apocalyptic fantasy is not an accurate one.
https://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html
I do think however that once a technological singularity appears, that singularity will depend on humans for so long a time that we will wonder why did we worry about it.
Get work in artificial intelligence in the financial sector, designing high-speed trading algorithms. That sector, which holds the purse strings to much of what happens in other areas of society, is already dominated by out-of-control computer programs, so you shouldn’t have to work too hard for too long.
The absolute best thing you can do is have access to large amounts of money, then use that money to fund singularity research. Achieving that isn’t easy though.
How do you obtain large amounts of money? Either become an entrepreneur, or become a politician (maybe governor or a senator) who can then direct sums to research projects. Or find people with money and get them to invest it in singularity research.
Take Obama, he recently proposed 3 billion to reverse engineer the brain. There is nothing he could do himself that will match that project. If he had decided to study engineering instead of law at harvard, his efforts as an individual wouldn’t match his abilities as a politician who can direct 3 billion into neuroscience research.
If you don’t have access to large amounts of money, finding people who do and encouraging them to invest in singularity tech is a good start. People who are multimillionaires and billionaires in the tech industry seem open to investing in singularity technology (neuroscience, AI, robotics, nanotechnology, biology, etc).
Even if you were brilliant and went to CalTech or MIT and got a degree in engineering, who cares really? You’d earn what, 150k a year as an extremely talented engineer who went to the best schools on earth? You can just hire someone instead if you are a billionaire. Hell, I bet the engineers in China who are working on technology that will help bring about the singularity make 30k a year. If you were rich, you could hire a thousand Chinese neuroscientists and engineers and direct them to work on programs that will achieve your goal.
The biggest innovation that’ll help speed up the singularity is machine problem solving. Once our machines develop problem solving abilities vastly better than our own they will continue to advance and hopefully take us with them.
I’ve once heard the Singularity derided as ‘religion for the 140 IQ crowd’. Fairly accurate. But a true singularity (or failing that, technology advances we can consider and comprehend with our limited brains) would still open a lot of possibilities. Humans are mostly good, and we’ve mostly used our advances in technology and education to improve our own lives. I don’t see that trend changing.
Moving to California is not the first step. The first step is to go to a really good school to study computer science or engineering, do really well and then apply to Google. It’s not at all easy to get a job there. But if they want you, they’ll pay for you to move to Mountain View or to one of their other research centers around the world.
And once you’ve actually studied computer science or engineering, you’ll understand how feasible and likely the “singularity” is.
Another vote for “The Singularity is fantasy.” It’s not real. It’s a science fiction trope that people like Kurzweil have morphed into a non-fiction theory because they can’t write fiction.
Read Existence by David Brin.
There, you can find many careers related to AI.
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This is more of a request for opinions and advice than a factual question.
Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.
Even the most advanced AI is pretty straightforward. There’s room for an outsider to come in and invent things.
Start reading, find an unsolved problem, and solve it. Repeat until assimilated.
EDit- I want a smart spell checker. A really truly smart one.
The best way to do this, I think, is to buy technology gadgets. New smart phone every six months. New gaming PC, or at least upgrade your video card, every six months. Every new video game system, and lots of video games. Just keep driving that technology forward.
The first step is to formulate a precise definition of “technological singularity.” Do you have a clear idea in your head of what the phrase means? Or do you have some vague idea of a future utopia where we all have robot butlers?
Get a degree in artificial intelligence first, Google will send recruiters to your school…
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