On our most recent FastForward Radio, we talked about defining the Singularity not so much in terms of the achievement of greater-than-human intelligence as the fundamental and radical transformation of the world around us. If the Singularity is about transforming the world around us, then achieving greater-than-human intelligence, or atomically precise manufacturing, or an other major technological leap, becomes a means to that end, but not necessarily the end itself.
This discussion reminded me of a series of interviews I did with various futurists a while back, asking each of them a standard set of questions about the Singularity. One of those questions was:
Do you believe that you have a role to play in the unfolding Singularity and, if so, what is it?
I conducted most of those interviews at the Singularity Summit, so it’s not surprising that my interview subjects by and large answered in the affirmative and were able to articulate how they saw themselves fitting into the coming Singularity. I wonder, though, what kind of response this question would get from a non-Singularity aware audience, other than the obvious:
“The unfolding what?“
So we might have to phrase the question differently, and maybe our expanded definition of the Singularity helps us to do that:
Do you believe that you have a role to play in the fundamental transformation of the world and, if so, what is it?”
It becomes a pretty daunting question. (Note that we’ve skipped the more fundamental question as to whether one believes the world is going to be transformed. One should ask that first, but we’re taking it as a given for this discussion.) There’s a hint of the audacious, some would even argue the delusional, in answering that question in the affirmative. And yet what a feeling of impotence, if not helplessness, would accompany answering in the negative.
However, I think there are three things that everybody can do to help bring this transformation about.
The first is to imagine the world transformed. All intentional accomplishment begins in the imagination. This is not to say that everything that happens begins in the imagination. Many things occur that we never imagined. Nor is it to say that all accomplishment begins in the imagination — sometimes we stumble on new things that we never imagined while trying to do something else. But when we get it right — when the future that we make happen is the one we were trying to make happen — our circumstances become the fruit of our imagination.
Beyond imagining, the next step is to intend for the world to be transformed. The ideas to which we apply intention are a very small subset of everything we imagine. There are any number of possible future scenarios that we like to think about, but have no intention of pursuing. Moreover, we fantasize about a wide variety of outcomes that we dread, fear, or just generally don’t want — we call this worrying. We actually do attach intention to some of our worries by deciding to take steps to prevent or avoid them. And then there are a few positive images of the future that we form first in our imaginations and then direct towards fulfillment by way of our intentions.
Finally, we can all insist that the world be transformed. When we imagine, we trade in what could be; when we intend, we deal with those things that should be; when we insist, we have narrowed it down to those things that must be.
Interestingly, I think this formula applies equally well to the researchers working on the cutting edge of friendly AI or atomically precise manufacturing as it does the non-technically trained layperson. Whether we’re trying to bring about a mundane or spooky technological Singularity, or simply trying to fix one broken part of our world, we have to see that change for ourselves, we have to direct ourselves towards that change, and we have to be ready to do whatever it takes to make that change real. Whoever we are, whatever transformation we want to effect, we have to imagine, intend, and insist.
