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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Turanil" data-source="post: 2629263" data-attributes="member: 9646">I am now reading a great book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670033847/qid=1128511252/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-3491336-6063933?v=glance&s=books" target="_blank">The Singularity Is Near</a> by Ray Kurtzweil (more on his website: <a href="http://www.KurzweilAI.net/index.html?flash=1" target="_blank">www.KurzweilAI.net</a>). This book is about our near future (21st century), and very convincing (lots of mathematical analysis and scientific explanations, etc.). If you are interested in science-fiction, computers, or what our near future may look like, I think it's a great read. Basically, the book's main idea is this: Our current technological progress in fact belongs to the evolution of life here on Earth. It began with bacterias billions of years ago, and followed an exponential curve. That is, at first it took 2 billions of years to evolve a simple bacteria into multicellular life, but then each step of evolution took much less time. Later, evolution of human technology followed that same exponential trend, where inventing the wheel and using fire took ages, but now creating better technology every year is increasingly faster. So, according to all these observations, the author thinks that by 2020/2030, we will have sentient computers vastly superior to human brains, and that will create vastly superior technology. Anyway, you don't need to have read the book to post in this thread. The thing is that I want to write a sci-fi novel based on these projections, but have a hard time to fathom what society could be like if it is going to be true. I would like to get your opinion on this question:So, in this view the world is dominated by powerful sentient computers (compared to which humans appear to be morons) in the hands of governments, multinationals, and other powerful organizations. Given that a 1000$ personal computer would be intellectually much better (and tireless) than a normal human, plus that nanotechnology now enables to manufacture almost anything better than any human or 20th century factory could do, what would people do for a living? I mean: any computer and nano-assembly line can do whatever I could do better, faster, and cheaper. So what can I do for a living? (I mean, whatever I may try to do to make money, some machine will do it better, faster, and cheaper, so I am outcompeted.) Would this be a world where masses of poors would starve, unable to find any job to make a living? Give me your ideas about a world where all personal computers are better than humans at intellectual doings, and nano-assembly lines make human workforces useless. I don't believe in philanthropy being an effective force at work on this world, so I don't think everybody would be served freely by a world of subservient machines. But maybe you think different. Maybe there are factors I canot think of. Opinions?</blockquote>

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