Re: making microsingularities

From: Anne Marie Tobias (atobias@interwoven.com)
Date: Thu May 24 2001 - 19:05:05 MDT


I think this points to what I like to think of as the diffraction or
spread of humanity during the singularity...

As the stress and impact of technology pulls the fabric of society
apart, you begin to see the diffraction of the various levels of
humanity in the context of technological impact... This is analagous
to the impact of tidal force pulling something apart as it enters a
black hole... and eventually it get's ripped into a stream of strings...

So the scientist augments first, then the business man, then the
American dirt farmer, then the Nirobi slum dweller, and finally the
Tibetan goat herder... As the impact of the technology amplifies
the difference, the breadth of the gap between haves and have
nots... the span between those who enter the event horizon of
the singularity first and last will expand exponentially.

I see our predictions as neither optimistic or pessimistic... I see
them as pure fantasy. We are over the event horizon of the future
that was predictable from 1970. 10 years ahead from now is just
as far from our perspective of evolution as 30 years back was. In
fact it may be more like 50 years back. 10 years from now we'll
be working with technology that so dwarfs what we currently
use, that it makes almost no sense to try to guess. IBM is selling
fairy dust today... Japan will sell crystal storage tomorrow... the
HAL box will begin to bring meaningful AI capable hardware to
your desk top next year... A company in Chicago has built and is
marketing a holographic molecular manipulator... self assembling
MEMs are slated for imminent production.

Folks... smell the coffee... this is all stuff that is happening NOW!
Genomics is here. The protein analysis of the human genome is
slated to take 3 years. This is stuff that 10 years ago people were
predicting would take 50 years. The time for picking your seat on
the bus is getting SHORT. Of course those of you who are now
reading this are probably in the right place. The only question that
matters is what responsibility do we have to the rest of our species
and how are we going to get them all lined up for what's coming?

First rule of singularities... is you can't predict what will happen...
The FM component just get's to great... (FM = Friggin Magic).

The only thing that makes sense is bringing as much sanity to the
conversation as possible (which inherently means checking egos
at the door, and letting go of survival behavior.) AND doing what
ever it takes to persuade the world cultures in embracing the great
possibility of their own evolution.

Marie Tobias

Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> Spike Jones wrote,
> > This is something Ive pondered often since I read my great grandmother's
> > diary. She wrote entries nearly every day, but what caught my eye was
> > an entry she made in on 24 October 1929, since it did not mention the
> > stock market crash. The collapse was in a sense a social
> > microsingularity, in that everything changed on that day.
>
> > We discuss the AI version of the Singularity, yet much of this world
> > still has never even seen a computer, and at least at the time would
> > fail to notice if an AI, friendly or otherwise, suddenly took over
> > everything. spike
>
> You are exactly right. This is why I think many of our predictions are way
> too optimistic. Most of us practically live in the laboratory, where we see
> advances every day. But these advances are really just demonstrations of
> possibilities. They may or may not actually change the world as expected.
> Much of the world still lives as they have for hundreds or thousands of
> years.
>
> --
> Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> <http://Newstaff.com>



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