While we are all arguing about credit-swap-derivatives and Keynesian economics, science and technology moves on.
This is a holographic image of Ray Kurzweil, techno-utopian, singulatarian, author, and inventor of incredibly awesome musical instruments. Announced today was the joint venture of Google, NASA and Kurzweil on a project called “Singularity University.” For $25,000, you will be able to study artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and biotechnology in depth over a nine week period, ostensibly to explore the concept of “singularity,” the intersection of these technologies that could theoretically mean a radical leap for humanity.
I am conflicted about this.
Let me say that I love Kurzweil as a polemicist. His book Age of Spiritual Machines posed insightful questions about the development of neural nets and advanced computing, making us consider just what our interactions with non-carbon life could look like. He asks pertinent questions with imagination and daring.
My conflict is over his more recent book The Singularity is Near, which is techno-utopianism claptrap taken to its most absurb level, a book that says mortality can be conquered and conquered soon by the magical intersection of IT, nanotech, and biotech. Specifics on this intersection are not offered, nor supported by peer-reviewed scientific literature. The methodology for his forecasts is non-existant, a textbook example of how simple extrapolation of current trends can lead you to conclusions without validity. For example, I don’t believe that nanotech and biotech will allow us to live forever as holograms in our iPods just because we’re spending a lot on genomics and nanotech research. We don’t even know why we sleep, nor understand how proteins are coded from the genome, nor a million other basic facts about humanity. Can we learn? Sure! Are their leaps in understanding? Absolutely! Can we count on them? Not so fast – Mother Nature gives up her secrets on her schedule, not ours. And every answer obtained usually means 1,000 more questions.
Most of the healthcare community is terrified of the real future of taking care of Baby Boomers with diabetes, heart failure and Alzheimer’s, while the “transhumanist” community is going on about we can defeat death in 2023 and live forever as Second Life characters. I find the worldview frivolous at best.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t right.
Mind you, I’m not betting on uploading my brain into an iPod anytime soon, but I don’t want to dismiss these people or these thoughts at this moment in time. I think we’re getting very distracted by the turmoil caused by globalized finance and industry. This is understandable, but anytime people are this involved in a crisis, we take our minds off the vast majority of other things going on. And while we’re fixing our monetary system – which will take years – scientific research and development is going to keep progressing. Somebody ought to be watching it and considering a broad range of scenarios. In this case, I’d rather have a guy like Kurzweil pushing the envelope. We need to consider best- and worst-case outcomes and discuss it well in advance.
Why my change of heart? Look up current progress in surveillance technology. It has come so far, and is moving so fast toward a society of constant observation- with totalitarian implications – that it is clear that science and technology is not waiting for us to clean up our 401(k)s. It’s moving along, with or without us. And all of us, Ray Kurzweil included, need to keep thinking about it.
