What will the future really look like? How will global capitalism be overcome and transcended—if at all? • What price will humanity pay to get rid of this pestilence? • And how will humans interact in a world where capitalism is finally history but most people live in a new age dominated by Artificial Intelligence?
The technological singularity (also, simply, the singularity)[1] is the hypothesis that the invention of artificial superintelligencewill abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.[2] According to this hypothesis, an upgradable intelligent agent (such as a computer running software-based artificial general intelligence) would enter a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, with each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an intelligence explosion and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that would, qualitatively, far surpass all human intelligence. John von Neumann first used the term "singularity" (c. 1950s[3]), in the context of technological progress causing accelerating change: "The accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, give the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue".[4] Subsequent authors have echoed this viewpoint.[2][5] I. J. Good's "intelligence explosion" model predicts that a future superintelligence will trigger a singularity.[6] Emeritus professor of computer science at San Diego State University and science fiction author Vernor Vinge said in his 1993 essay The Coming Technological Singularity that this would signal the end of the human era, as the new superintelligence would continue to upgrade itself and would advance technologically at an incomprehensible rate.[6]
Many notable personalities, including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, consider the uncontrolled rise of artificial intelligence as a matter of alarm and concern for humanity's future. The consequences of the singularity and its potential benefit or harm to the human race have been hotly debated by various intellectual circles. (Read on, Technological Singularity).
So without further eloquence, as Mr Dooley might say, here's the selections from this thread.
Patrice Greanville
Our colleague Gaither Stewart has sent a fine piece in remembrance of Sophie Scholl and her heroic associates in the struggle against Nazism. Since ghastly history seems intent on repeating itself, I thought you would be interested in reading it.
Eric Schechter
Though certainly we can learn something from the past, the phrase "history repeats itself" should not be accepted too literally. In this essay I have listed five different ways in which our present era is unprecedented -- all five of them having major effects on our political situation:
An Unprecedented Age
Some of my friends tell me that we should study past dramatic events, such as the Russian revolution or the rise of Hitler, because the future will be just like the past. Some of them seem to think that history is only capable of doing something like six different things, so we just have to figure out which of those is now being repeated. I’m not convinced of that.
Certainly we can learn from history, but I think there are a lot more possibilities. In fact, our situation now is very different from any past era. I don’t know what is coming, but here are several major factors that are unprecedented:
- The ecosystem is dying, far faster than most people realize, from a variety of causes. One cause is global warming. Global warming has feedback loops — i.e., some of its consequences are also causes — and that causes exponential growth. There may also be abrupt rises in temperature, as we pass through certain tipping points — for instance, perhaps a lot of the methane sequestered in the Arctic will be released at once, as the temperature rises past some point. Unlike previous catastrophes such as wars, the destruction of the ecosystem actually imposes a time limit on humanity: We have to fix this soon, or we’re going extinct. (And it’s my opinion that we can’t fix this under our present economic system — we must replace that system soon or die — but that’s beyond the scope of this essay.)
- Unlike previous centuries, we are living in the shadow of Edward Bernays. The battle we must fight is a battles of ideas, propaganda versus awakening, far more than ever before; it’s not just a battle with guns. The internet has served partly as an anti-Bernays, but the establishment may be about to take the internet away from us. It may soon be replaced by the “Ministry of Truth” (actually untruth) depicted in the dystopian novel “1984.”
- Unlike previous centuries, we are living with a recent memory of prosperity. The so-called “golden age of capitalism,” around 1945 to 1970, was the one time in history when a market economy seemed to be working favorably for a large portion of society. Now that we know what prosperity looks like, we have to try to figure out how to make it happen reliably. — Advocates of capitalism, such as Simon Kuznets, have convinced themselves that the “golden age” was the normal behavior of capitalism, and all the other behavior we’ve seen was just aberrations that could be fixed by adjustments. But Thomas Piketty has shown, with extensive data, that just the opposite is true: The “golden age” itself was the aberration, and the general trend of capitalism is toward greater inequality. We need more people to understand this.
- The past is not completely forgotten. Perhaps we don’t study history as much as we ought to, but some of its major features cannot be forgotten. The History Channel on television has played unending videos of World War II, so much that some people refer to it as “The Hitler Channel.” And every time some authoritarian politician makes any headway at all, bloggers and pundits are all asking each other “is he just like Hitler? has fascism begun to rise again?” This awareness does not completely prevent the rise of A New Hitler, but it does prevent a new rise of a First Hitler. If we get a new Hitler, he will be coming to a world that is already aware what it is like to have a Hitler. That doesn’t completely prevent the experience, but at least it changes the experience. Likewise for the Russian Revolution, or any other major drama from the past.
- Information and its tools — e.g., computers — are growing exponentially fast, because these too are a feedback system. This has enormous consequences.
- Automation is spreading — i.e., human labor is being replaced by machines. The pace of this replacement is still slow, but it is accelerating. No job is “safe.” You might call this late late stage capitalism. Carry this trend to an extreme, and the only people with incomes will be the handful of people who “own” all the robots. But that’s an absurdity, a contradiction, because then there would be no customers with money in their pockets to buy the goods and services produced by the robots. Thus, that extreme cannot be reached; the current economic system will fall apart first. I don’t know what system will replace it, or what form the transition will take. Maybe we’ll have a guaranteed basic income for all, or maybe there will be a fight to the death between the general public and the soldiers who are loyal to the self-described “owners.” But at any rate the current trend in the current economic system can’t continue much longer. Probably the outcome will be more favorable if more people see the change coming; we need to tell more people about it.
- Communication is increasing. The “Arab Spring,” which was run on Twitter, may have failed, but it may portend later revolutions that will succeed. A single neuron by itself is not very smart, but the human brain is a hundred billion neurons networked in parallel, and together they sometimes do brilliant things. Facebook is a billion human brains networked in parallel. Perhaps we will be smarter together than separately, better at figuring out how to do things. More importantly, perhaps we will be wiser, better at figuring out which things are worth doing. Perhaps an age of understanding and cooperation is finally within reach.
- But the growth of information is also making us all more powerful, in ways that can be used for good or ill. The question of gun control will soon be obsolete and old-fashioned, because soon people will be able to make guns on 3d-printers in their basements; gun registration won’t be able to stop that; any madman will be able to kill dozens of people. In fact, soon, every suicidal madman will have all the information he needs to build a germ warfare lab in his basement, and that can’t be stopped by some authoritarian bully with drones; any suicidal madman will be able to kill millions of peopl. The only thing that can make us safe is a change to a culture of caring and sharing that leaves no one behind, so that there aren’t any suicidal madmen and no one wants to hurt us.
- And I see a time coming, not long from now, when computer intelligence will cross the threshold of sentience, when computers surpass us in their ability to think independently. It may seem far off, because presently computers can only do very specialized tasks, such as beat us at chess. But research into artificial intelligence is accelerating too, as a feedback loop; some self-teaching machines are already being devised. When the computers take charge, will they squash us like bugs, as in the “Terminator” movies? Or will they keep us on as pets, as we have kept our dogs and cats? Or will we merge with computers — will we all be augmented by implants that integrate us into some great network, transcending our present notion of “human” in ways that we presently can’t even imagine? I don’t know, but I think that whether we are moving toward heaven or hell may depend on what kind of culture we develop now — that is, how we treat each other now. We need to work on philosophy, and cognitive semantics, and just simple kindness.
I don’t know just what is going to happen, but I think computer scientist Mark Miller had it right when he said, “You know, things are going to be really different! . . . No, no, I mean really different!” (Source: https://leftymathprof.wordpress.com/an-unprecedented-age/)
Patrice Greanville
Eric is absolutely right that history does not exactly repeat itself, but of course I did not mean that in the exact, "template" sense of it. I was simply implying that "the lights are going out" once again, as the empire tries to shut down all possible public discussion [even] in the interstitial Internet, feeling (justly) that the truth is much too dangerous to be allowed even as a weak presence in a world in which realities may begin to prompt people to lend an ear. I merely meant the rather undeniable notion that at some point the system will drop all pretense [of benign civility] and try to snuff out all its enemies, singly, jointly, sequentially, whatever, in order to quell revolutionary transformations. Capitalism has no solutions, no cures to the enormous problems it causes, stemming from its defining malignant dynamic in its social relations matrix. So while fascism, a la Hitler style, may not come any time soon, or ever, other formats may replace it, as the corporate totalitarian propaganda machine can hope to hold the masses only so far in terms of a divergent reality. At that point—or sooner—something's gotta give, and there will be sparks. We are therefore in a race of communications, for conversions, & mobilizations. They to suppress challenges to the "official truth"; we to present curative alternatives. And if we know anything about the sociopathic nature of this ruling class, this process won't be civilised, or bloodless, like sitting down for tea and crumpets with the Queen.
R. J. Burrowes
Thank you, Patrice, for distributing Gaither's fine article and to you too Eric for yours. I share the sense of inspiration from the commitment and courage of Sophie and Hans (and those like them). I also believe we must learn from the past but also build on it so that we are far more strategic in our efforts to tackle key institutions (such as capitalism) and issues given the multifaceted nature of the threat to the biosphere as well as targeted sections of the human (and non-human) population in the (largely elite-driven) changing environment of our time. Some of you might be interested in two of my own recent attempts to mobilise more effort in this direction:
•'Killing the Biosphere to Fast-track Human Extinction' http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/30/killing-the-biosphere-to-fast-track-human-extinction/
•'A Nonviolent Strategy to End Violence and Avert Human Extinction' http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/10/24/a-nonviolent-strategy-to-end-violence-and-avert-human-extinction/
David W. Pear
"Just by chance, we humans have developed the capacity for reason. But having developed it, we no longer need to leave things to chance..." —E. Schechter
Most frightening of all is that most people believe them. Just as people once believed that monarchy was the will of god, they now believe that the oligarchs rule by the magical will of the Invisible Hand, and that it must now be conserved. Magical thinking and denial of the truth in plan sight is a tremendously powerful human motivating force. The mythological Invisible Hand is not invisible thanks to the internet. Those that want to conserve the status quo are holding on by tightening the noose of the police state to strangle the internet.
Brilliant and compassionate essay. Courage is what it takes to act for justice for those of us with enough food, but to make a revolution what it takes is a great deal of people who finally act only when they don’t have enough food. If there is enough food, for example where l live in Denmark, there is no need or thought of exercising courage, because acting for what is purely and simply right/ just results in loss of privileges and necessities like jobs. And you can end up in jail or even worse depending on how far fascism has penetrated the state. The Scholls were not followed by more than handfuls namely because they lost their lives. Aside from my pessimism, I do feel warm and a bit hopeful now that I am informed about how the Scholls are so revered today by so many Germans. Maybe, just maybe, because Germans participated in and suffered from that most brutal fascist period and because future governments taught that history it has helped make so many decent people. But our own homeland, the U.S.A., lacks that perspective. Thank you very much Gaither for this information and for your just spirit.
Eric Schechter
—>David W Pear
I am not in favor of "evolution" through "free competition." It produces things that are good at perpetuating themselves, but that includes things like capitalism and the Ebola virus. Just by chance, we humans have developed the capacity for reason. But having developed it, we no longer need to leave things to chance.
I wonder if the only level of communication that is effective is a level that can get you decapitated. I think perhaps it is not.If you simply mutter to your neighbors "the emperor has no clothes," the emperor's secret police might not even notice. And even if they do notice, I think they probably will not take it seriously. At least, not yet. But perhaps your neighbor will then mutter it to his neighbors. And so on.One advantage of having a network of mutterers is that no one of them can be singled out as a ringleader and hanged for that. I post radical ideas on my website, but there are thousands of other people doing the same, and no one of us is the source. The emperor can only stop that by jailing ALL of us. And perhaps he shall, after a time, but that time is not yet.It doesn't take much courage to mutter. Indeed, for some of us it comes very naturally.What we need is a culture that encourages muttering. How can we help the development of such a culture? I don't know. I'm tempted to say that we should use samizdat -- i.e., use unpolished, low-tech publications, giving a concrete but personal look and feel to our muttering. We run the risk that the emperor will try to make illegal the possession of samizdat, but that will not be easy if all the samizdat look different. I write my own leaflets, and though I would be flattered if other people copy them, it might be more effective if other people write their own.
One advantage of having a network of mutterers is that no one of them can be singled out as a ringleader and hanged for that. I post radical ideas on my website, but there are thousands of other people doing the same, and no one of us is the source. The emperor can only stop that by jailing ALL of us. And perhaps he shall, after a time, but that time is not yet. It doesn’t take much courage to mutter. Indeed, for some of us it comes very naturally.
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The non-cyclic democracy is a permanent, constant election process which has its point of commencement but is infinite in terms of time perspective. It enables people to vote at any time they wish with no limitation on the number of votes. Open vote means the right of people, in case they wish, to step out of their anonymity as voters in the continuous election process of the non-cyclic democracy. Vote of correction means an open vote of confirmation or rejection at any, desired by people time from the continuous election process with the non-cyclic democracy. With the non-cyclic democracy, the… Read more »
Courage. We should not submit to a Cassandra-syndrome. This world weariness is typical of a dying empire, vide the same in the writings of the waning days of the Roman one and again circa the year 1000 in Europe when everything seemed dark, unpredictable and like a world descending into the abyss. It is quite fashionable now to be despondent, especially in US ‘socially aware ‘circles which see through a glass darkly. The world is unendingly large and the US only a small part of it. That its capitalist culture or what goes under that name penetrates everywhere is simply… Read more »
As I believe everyone posting here knows, Capitalism is intrinsically unsustainable due to the private ownership and reckless exploitation of land, labor, and natural resources. The idea that human beings, in our blip of existence on this planet, can actually own the earth’s resources (capital) is not only unjust; it is absurd to the point of being laughable. The arrogance that our species possesses is inherently flawed and unjust. This malignant ideology of planetary stewardship is perpetuated by the Judeo-Christian belief that we as a species somehow possess “dominion” over the animals and planet, which unfortunately is the kernel of… Read more »
As their numbers continue to grow, we’re going to have to figure out what to do with those who were already discarded by our capitalist system — the poor. People don’t want to think about it. Maybe its too scary as more and more people realize that “working class” can be a temporary position. We lost over 5 million manufacturing jobs alone since 2000, and simply refuse to acknowledge the consequences.
Consider the online public discussion, and ask how much progress has been made. The poor, of course — a sizable portion of the population today — have no voice in the public forum. They are priced out of mainstream America entirely, discarded by this generation. The people who do speak up about the hypocrisy of the Democrats’ “social/economic justice” discussion, tend to get blocked off of liberal discussion boards. Since Reagan, we’ve watched as several trillion taxpayer dollars were effectively redistributed upward, to the corporate and military powers (formerly known as the military-industrial complex). As long as liberal media so… Read more »