Well I read just yesterday of some scientist of the "quantum fraction" who postulated that several dependencies in quantum mechanics makes him believe that there are parallel universes and also he stated that in his opinion there was no big bang but the universe is ever there infinite and a place where time may run forward and back (no deeper explanations in the article)...
My fault, I should have been more specific; I wasn't talking about a cosmological singularity, a Black Hole or the Big Bang; I was referring to the concept of the Technological Singularity believed in by some people, which is a hypothetical event supposed to occur when the first true sapient hard AI is created, at which point the first thing it will do is either upgrade itself or create a second generation AI that is smarter than itself, which will supposedly then create an explosion of ever-increasingly smarter AIs that will outstrip human intelligence so quickly and so completely that we can have no way of predicting what would happen beyond that point. In other words, Judgement Day from Terminator.
I don't believe such a thing will ever happen, or is even possible. For one thing the whole concept of the Singularity (they like to capitalize it) relies on the assumption that intelligence vastly superior to human-level is even possible in the first place. That's a
big assumption to make, that it is possible for there to be a superior level of consciousness beyond human consciousness that we can't comprehend, and that these AIs will achieve it. The Singularitarians love to over-extrapolate based on analogies and they use the analogy that the AIs will be to humans as humans are to chimps. However, it just might be that a level of super-consciousness like that isn't even
possible, and that there just isn't any room to be very much smarter than the smartest human beings. The assumption that meta-human super-consciousness is even possible is a rather large one to make. It also relies on the assumption that the AIs will be able to quickly and easily improve upon their own intelligence by orders of magnitude, and that is also another
huge assumption to make.
Essentially the whole idea of the Singularity is a technofetishist utopia built upon a whole lot of assumptions (even though I would call it a nightmarish
dystopia) that is adhered to with religious fervor by some people, including quite a few Silicon Valley tech-bros.
There are even certain groups out there that exist entirely to hasten the arrival of the Singularity, on the assumption that it is inevitable and, when it happens, the AI that results will essentially have godlike powers and will be able to create a giant, eternal computer simulation inside itself containing perfectly simulated mathematical mental duplicates of every person who has ever existed, and then the AI will use this giant simulation to eternally punish the computer simulations of every person who ever lived who did not actively work toward ensuring its creation as quickly as possible. So, because they do not want to have their future computer simulation-selves damned to eternal punishment. Because they honestly they believe that, since it will be a perfect simulation of themselves, it will essentially
be them experiencing the eternal punishment of Future Computer Hell... persistence of identity and the metaphysically questionable idea of such a thing be damned. So they devote all of their resources to making sure that the Singularity happens as soon as possible, so that the Future God AI won't be mad at them when it arrives and put them in Simulated Computer Hell in its imagination for all eternity (or until the universe ends... but a lot of them also believe the AI will be so smart it will figure out a way to either prevent that, or preserve itself through the end of the universe.)
It's basically the absolute worst kind of
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream scenario, but they
fervently believe in it being absolutely real and inevitable.
There's a whole lot of delusional techno-religious utopianism/dystopianism going on with it, and it's all mixed up with transhumanist/cyborg fetish futurism. I've read that there are people who have bankrupted themselves from donating more money than they could afford to these groups because they fear the inevitable coming of the Singularity Future God AI so much. When the rational reality is that the whole thing is
completely evitable, and in fact highly,
highly unlikely.
I had the misfortune of coming across some writings about AI from some hardcore "Singularitarians" right after finding that Wired article (specifically some stuff about Ray Kurzweil) and it triggered my BS overflow gag reflex until I just had to write something about it. I am in no way a mind/body dualist and don't buy into quantum consciousness woo or any kind of spirit or soul, but there is a whole lot more to the mind and consciousness than processing power and it's something that software alone could never be made to emulate. The "hardware" structure of the brain and body as a whole is what makes it possible.
rationalwiki.org
