The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (92 page)

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, in
The Singularitarian Principles
, version 1.0.2 (January 1, 2000),
http://yudkowsky.net/sing/principles.ext.html
, proposed an alternate definition: “A Singularitarian is someone who believes that technologically creating a greater-than-human intelligence is desirable, and who works to that end. A Singularitarian is friend, advocate, defender, and agent of the future known as the Singularity.”

My view: one can advance the Singularity and in particular make it more likely to represent a constructive advance of knowledge in many ways and in many spheres of human discourse—for example, advancing democracy, combating totalitarian and fundamentalist belief systems and ideologies, and creating knowledge in all of its diverse forms: music, art, literature, science, and technology. I regard a Singularitarian as someone who understands the transformations that are coming in this century and who has reflected on their implications for his or her own life.

2
. We will examine the doubling rates of computation in the next chapter. Although the number of transistors per unit cost has doubled every two years, transistors have been getting progressively faster, and there have been many other levels of innovation and improvement. The overall power of computation per unit cost has recently been doubling every year. In particular, the amount of computation (in computations per second) that can be brought to bear to a computer chess machine doubled every year during the 1990s.

3
. John von Neumann, paraphrased by Stanislaw Ulam, “Tribute to John von Neumann,”
Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society
64.3, pt. 2 (May 1958): 1–49. Von Neumann (1903–1957) was born in Budapest into a Jewish banking family and came to Princeton University to teach mathematics in 1930. In 1933 he became one of the six original professors in the new Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton, where he stayed until the end of his life. His interests were far ranging: he was the primary force in defining the new field of quantum mechanics; along with coauthor Oskar Morgenstern, he wrote
Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
, a text that transformed the study of economics; and he made significant contributions to the logical design of early computers, including building MANIAC (Mathematical Analyzer, Numeral Integrator, and Computer) in the late 1930s.

Here is how Oskar Morgenstern described von Neumann in the obituary “John von Neumann, 1903–1957,” in the
Economic Journal
(March 1958: 174): “Von Neumann exercised an unusually large influence upon the thought of other men in his personal relations. . . . His stupendous knowledge, the immediate response, the unparalleled intuition held visitors in awe. He would often solve their problems before they had finished stating them. His mind was so unique that some people have asked themselves—they too eminent scientists—whether he did not represent a new stage in human mental development.”

4
. See notes
20
and
21
in
chapter 2
.

5
. The conference was held February 19–21, 2003, in Monterey, California. Among the topics covered were stem-cell research, biotechnology, nanotechnology, cloning, and genetically modified food. For a list of books recommended by conference speakers, see
http://www.thefutureoflife.com/books.htm
.

6
. The Internet, as measured by the number of nodes (servers), was doubling every year during the 1980s but was only tens of thousands of nodes in 1985. This grew to tens of millions of nodes by 1995. By January 2003, the Internet Software Consortium (
http://www.isc.org/ds/host-count-history.html
) counted 172 million Web hosts, which are the servers hosting Web sites. That number represents only a subset of the total number of nodes.

7
. At the broadest level, the anthropic principle states that the fundamental constants of physics must be compatible with our existence; if they were not, we would not be here to observe them. One of the catalysts for the development of the principle is the study of constants, such as the gravitational constant and the electromagnetic-coupling constant. If the values of these constants were to stray beyond a very narrow range, intelligent life would not be possible in our universe. For example, if the electromagnetic-coupling constant were stronger, there would be no bonding between electrons and other atoms. If it were weaker, electrons could not be held in orbit. In other words, if this single constant strayed outside an extremely narrow range, molecules would not form. Our universe, then, appears to proponents of the anthropic principle to be fine-tuned for the evolution of intelligent life. (Detractors such as Victor Stenger claim the fine-tuning is not so fine after all; there are compensatory mechanisms that would support a wider window for life to form under different conditions.)

The anthropic principle comes up again in the context of contemporary cosmology theories that posit multiple universes (see notes
8
and
9
, below), each with
its own set of laws. Only in a universe in which the laws allowed thinking beings to exist could we be here asking these questions.

One of the seminal texts in the discussion is John Barrow and Frank Tipler,
The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). See also Steven Weinberg, “A Designer Universe?” at
http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm
.

8
. According to some cosmological theories, there were multiple big bangs, not one, leading to multiple universes (parallel multiverses or “bubbles”). Different physical constants and forces apply in the different bubbles; conditions in some (or at least one) of these bubbles support carbon-based life. See Max Tegmark, “Parallel Universes,”
Scientific American
(May 2003): 41–53; Martin Rees, “Exploring Our Universe and Others,”
Scientific American
(December 1999): 78–83; Andrei Linde, “The Self-Reproducing Inflationary Universe,”
Scientific American
(November 1994): 48–55.

9
. The “many worlds” or multiverse theory as an interpretation of quantum mechanics was developed to solve a problem presented by quantum mechanics and then has been combined with the anthropic principle. As summarized by Quentin Smith:

A serious difficulty associated with the conventional or Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is that it cannot be applied to the general relativity space-time geometry of a closed universe. A quantum state of such a universe is describable as a wave function with varying spatial-temporal amplitude; the probability of the state of the universe being found at any given point is the square of the amplitude of the wave function at that point. In order for the universe to make the transition from the superposition of many points of varying probabilities to one of these points—the one in which it actually is—a measuring apparatus must be introduced that collapses the wave function and determines the universe to be at that point. But this is impossible, for there is nothing outside the universe, no external measuring apparatus, that can collapse the wave function.

A possible solution is to develop an interpretation of quantum mechanics that does not rely on the notion of external observation or measurement that is central to the Copenhagen interpretation. A quantum mechanics can be formulated that is internal to a closed system.

It is such an interpretation that Hugh Everett developed in his 1957 paper, “Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics.” Each point in the superposition represented by the wave function is regarded as actually containing one state of the observer (or measuring apparatus) and one state of the system being observed. Thus “with each succeeding observation (or interaction), the observer state ‘branches’ into a number of different states. Each branch represents a different outcome of the measurement and the corresponding eigenstate for the object-system state. All branches exist simultaneously in the superposition after any given sequence of observations.”

Each branch is causally independent of each other branch, and consequently no observer will ever be aware of any “splitting” process. The world will seem to each observer as it does in fact seem.

Applied to the universe as a whole, this means that the universe is regularly dividing into numerous different and causally independent branches, consequent upon the measurement-like interactions among its various parts. Each branch can be regarded as a separate world, with each world constantly splitting into further worlds.

Given that these branches—the set of universes—will include ones both suitable and unsuitable for life, Smith continues,“At this point it can be stated how the strong anthropic principle in combination with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics can be used in an attempt to resolve the apparent problem mentioned at the beginning of this essay. The seemingly problematic fact that a world with intelligent life is actual, rather than one of the many lifeless worlds, is found not to be a fact at all. If worlds with life and without life are both actual, then it is not surprising that this world is actual but is something to be expected.”

Quentin Smith, “The Anthropic Principle and Many-Worlds Cosmologies,”
Australasian Journal of Philosophy
63.3 (September 1985), available at
http://www.qsmithwmu.com/the_anthropic_principle_and_many-worlds_cosmologies.htm
.

10.
See
chapter 4
for a complete discussion of the brain’s self-organizing principles and the relationship of this principle of operation to pattern recognition.

11.
With a “linear” plot (where all graph divisions are equal), it would be impossible to visualize all of the data (such as billions of years) in a limited space (such as a page of this book). A logarithmic (“log”) plot solves that by plotting the order of magnitude of the values rather than the actual values, allowing you to see a wider range of data.

12.
Theodore Modis, professor at DUXX, Graduate School in Business Leadership in Monterrey, Mexico, attempted to develop a “precise mathematical law that governs the evolution of change and complexity in the Universe.” To research the pattern and history of these changes, he required an analytic data set of significant events where the events equate to major change. He did not want to rely solely on his own list, because of selection bias. Instead, he compiled thirteen multiple independent lists of major events in the history of biology and technology from these sources:

        Carl Sagan,
The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1989). Exact dates provided by Modis.

        American Museum of Natural History. Exact dates provided by Modis.

        The data set “important events in the history of life” in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
.

        Educational Resources in Astronomy and Planetary Science (ERAPS), University of Arizona,
http://ethel.as.arizona.edu/~collins/astro/subjects/evolve-26.html
.

        Paul D. Boyer, biochemist, winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize, private communication. Exact dates provided by Modis.

        
J. D. Barrow and J. Silk, “The Structure of the Early Universe,”
Scientific American
242.4 (April 1980): 118–28.

        J. Heidmann,
Cosmic Odyssey: Observatoir de Paris
, trans. Simon Mitton (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

        J. W. Schopf, ed.,
Major Events in the History of Life
, symposium convened by the IGPP Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life, 1991 (Boston: Jones and Bartlett, 1991).

        Phillip Tobias,“Major Events in the History of Mankind,”
chap. 6
in Schopf,
Major Events in the History of Life
.

        David Nelson, “Lecture on Molecular Evolution I,”
http://drnelson.utmem.edu/evolution.html
, and “Lecture Notes for Evolution II,”
http://drnelson.utmem.edu/evolution2.html
.

        G. Burenhult, ed.,
The First Humans: Human Origins and History to 10,000 BC
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993).

        D. Johanson and B. Edgar,
From Lucy to Language
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

        R. Coren,
The Evolutionary Trajectory: The Growth of Information in the History and Future of Earth
, World Futures General Evolution Studies (Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 1998).

These lists date from the 1980s and 1990s, with most covering the known history of the universe, while three focus on the narrower period of hominoid evolution. The dates used by some of the older lists are imprecise, but it is the events themselves, and the relative locations of these events in history, that are of primary interest.

Modis then combined these lists to find clusters of major events, his “canonical milestones.” This resulted in 28 canonical milestones from the 203 milestone events in the lists. Modis also used another independent list by Coren as a check to see if it corroborated his methods. See T. Modis, “Forecasting the Growth of Complexity and Change,”
Technological Forecasting and Social Change
69.4 (2002);
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tmodis/TedWEB.htm
.