Technological Singularity

Technological Singularity: Fact or fiction?

Ray Kurzweil wrote a book in 2005 called “The Singularity is Near”. He claimed that artificial intelligence will lead to technological advancement that will make a utopia compared to the primitive 20th century. His book is an interesting read and makes very big claims, including the prospect of immortality for the average person. He imagines the world will change so much that humans will become the equivalent of the ancient conceptions of gods and goddesses, by merging with artificial intelligence. We want to find out if his claims are plausible, if these things he’s predicted are likely to happen, and the significance of this on the business world.

Claim 1: Technological advancement will advance so fast that it will be indistinguishable from magic. 

This, in a way, has already become true. and is probably the most verifiable of his claims. With the internet, we have communication as fast as the speed of light with anyone on earth. We have luxuries upon luxuries. Global travel is affordable for the middle class. Food is abundant and cheap, and nobody works on a farm. Productivity is no longer tied directly to human labor. Men can live lives of luxury off the internet, a technology that was not possible beforehand.

What are the implications of this? This means that the only difference between the rich and the poor are the toys they can play with and the tools they can access. In rich nations like the US, nearly everyone has access to speedy transportation, heating and cooling, plentiful food, and even instant communication and networking with anyone around the world. Anyone with internet access can start a business, raise capital, and become enormously wealthy, due to the excess productive capacity of the world. Technological advancements lead to more business, more wealth generation, and massive economic growth. This leads to more opportunities than ever, but also more inequality as some people capture the gains more than others.

Claim 2: Humans will become immortal. 

Ray Kurzweil thinks this will be done by 2030. This is the most fantastical of his claims, as human lifespans can expand, but aren’t expanding to escape velocity. Life expectancy has remained at a global average of 72 years, which was higher than in the 50s, but by no means a guarantee of immortality. Life extension technologies are getting improved slowly, and the pace of improvement does not show signs of picking up rapidly, so I doubt that longevity escape velocity will happen anytime soon. However, there is promising research. In Evidence for Improved DNA Repair in Long-Lived Bowhead Whale, by Firsanov et. al, scientists laid out evidence for 3 mechanisms that improve lifespans, and replicated it through gene editing in other organisms. 

If scientists are able to replicate this in humans without any glaring side effects, humans may be able to live longer lives. So longevity escape velocity might truly be possible, but I’m not sure if 2030 is the correct date. There are so many avenues that our physical bodies degrade, and each of these avenues need to be resolved before biological immortality is possible. It isn’t just cancer, it is Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and other diseases that afflict humanity. This also doesn’t reflect the issues of pandemics and infectious diseases that rise up on every occasion.

Humans living longer will create new industries, related to healthcare, fertility, leisure, and things related to consumption. The longevity of people creates new business opportunities for any enterprising individual who wants to solve all population problems that come with immortal humans. There is so much opportunity out there with longer lifespans because with more people come more opportunities to improve things and make money doing so.

Biological immortality will lead to further inequality, as those who are alive longer have more experience, skill, knowledge, as well as established assets and connections obtained than those who are born later. This may lead to a Gerentocracy, as older people are expected to work longer and contribute. Youth may be unemployed for longer periods of time as it takes longer to figure out the system, and people may extend adolescence into later years. All of these things lead to a system where it takes people upping their game to achieve success. Competition becomes more intense.

Claim 3: Humans and AI will merge.

Neuralink, and other Brain Computer Interface (BCI) companies, have risen to prominence. Miraculous things have happened, paralyzed people have been able to move, and if not, they are able to interact with the internet. Also, there were recent developments in AI, where Large Language Models, combined with agentic AI, have been able to automate many low level administrative labor, and are moving up the value chain to take over more complex tasks. Now if we combine these two developments, the BCIs and advanced AI, and perhaps we can use AI to augment human intelligence, perhaps merge people’s brains with artificial intelligence, further advancing the human race. The exact mechanism for this is unclear, and there is a large potential for things to go wrong, but if the science behind the brain and artificial intelligence is further decoded, this is possible.

The implications? This may stop the issue of technological unemployment, allowing for humans to remain dominant in the future and be able to remain productive, preventing a skynet scenario where humans are the thralls of AI. Instead, humans will transform into something new, beyond what they are today, and potentially no longer limited by flesh and blood. This means that people will be more productive than ever before. Perhaps one person can develop a business inducted into a major stock index, by themselves.

Claim 4: Humans will become far richer and more powerful than ever before, becoming godlike.

What does it mean to be a god? By the standards of the ancients, gods were immortal, had some form of magical powers, but were flawed beings in the matter of their fickleness, their favoritism, and their bursts of anger towards lesser beings. Gods are pretty much like humans, but with superpowers. Based on these depictions of gods, humans may indeed already have become like gods, with the exception of immortality. Humans can fly, travel from sea to sea, harvest energies of long dead animals, the wind, the sun, and rocks to power civilization.

What is the meaning of money in a world where material abundance is secured? What does it mean if humans have achieved technological marvels and mastered nature? If humans have truly become gods, and material poverty has ended, what does it mean to be human? Will we live in a world of luxury space communism?

That is doubtful, because although there will be an abundance of resources, there will still be a hierarchy of people. Absolute poverty will disappear, but relative poverty will not. Nothing about the singularity says anything about how production will be distributed, and economics will still apply in the aggregate. Nothing will bring equality as long as there are competing systems, competing governments, and different people with different ideas on how to run things.

Conclusion

Ray Kurzweil makes claims that are not completely unrealistic. The future of capitalism under a singularity will be a future of economic prosperity unimaginable, and we are seeing the fruit of this singularity. We can say the singularity began in the industrial revolution, which rapidly changed human lives on the scale of the agricultural revolution.

However, as a quote has stated, “the singularity is like a rapture for nerds”, where the people who work it into existence will receive immortality and godlike powers. That is not the case. Collectively, humans may be immortal, but on an individual basis, humans will still die. Life extension will happen, and it is possible that the average person may be able to live a century. The idea of the singularity reflects a world of technical progress advancing significantly, and synthesizes it into a simple word that makes people able to appreciate the wondrous times we are in.