Most people associate the world „singularity“ with exponential growth: that technological progress will accelerate more and more and that it therefore will - possibly in the near future - reach astonishing levels.
But this is not what the word really means. The term singularity has a clearly defined meaning in mathematics: it describes a point where a function ceases to behave regularly or is not well defined. A typical singularity is the pole, where - to say it a bit sloppily for mathematical standards - a „division by zero“ occurs and the function value becomes „infinity“ [4].
Exponential growth therefore has no singularity. The exponential function \(e^t\) (i.e. with time as a parameter) behaves regularly for any point in the future.
This is a very important difference! Expressed in layman’s terms it is the difference between...
„Crazy shit is going to happen soon, but we know - more or less - what’s coming“
and...
„We don’t even know how to talk about the future (in terms of our current society!) after some point in time anymore“
The term singularity does not describe mere „crazy growth“, but a model collapse, an event in time, where our world view becomes obsolete. We simply cannot make any predictions for any time beyond this point.
Why is this important? Because many of us believe that current developments (many of them not really desirable) will extend into the future indefinitely: that the rich will always get even richer and the poor even poorer. That our natural environment will be damaged even more heavily and temperatures will rise further.
But this is not what the concept of the singularity predicts. I don’t want to dwell on the details of the math, but the prediction depends on several parameters from which some are very hard to guess. Therefore, the exact moment of the singularity (when the model [1] will collapse) is very hard to predict (and possibly still years away [2]).
But this is not important anyway. Most probably our models (i.e. the way we understand our society) will become obsolete long before the singularity is reached according to the strict mathematical definition.
Therefore: we must learn to let go of so many concepts we believe to understand and believe to be carved in stone today.
Yes, many features of our current society will disappear. Some forerunners of this development are already appearing today: many people are scared to lose their job to AI.
Yes, jobs will most probably make no sense anymore rather soon. And their imagined loss triggers a whole cascade of fears in our mind:
- If I don’t have a job, I won’t have any money anymore
- If I don’t have money, I can’t buy stuff
- I will not be able to own anything anymore, therefore I will be poor
- I will suffer
All this is indeed very concerning in a scenario of exponential growth, as then all these factors can only get worse.
But things might look very differently in the case of a singularity:
The concept of the singularity predicts radical change. Nothing else. It's therefore rather a non-prediction than a prediction [3].
Radical change includes the possibility of a world where we don’t need (and don’t want) to own anything anymore and still feel much more happy than ever before. All of us.
The collapse of our world view (i.e. our ability to predict the future), does not mean that the end of the world is near. And it does not mean that we should fear the future either.
Whether a positive scenario can become reality or not also depends on our mindset. If we choose to adhere to obsolete concepts and structures of society for too long, we might - in the sense of a „self fulfilling prophecy“ - miss a historical chance to create a radically better world for all humankind.
[1] The model(s) we are talking about here describe the growth of human knowledge over time as differential equations.
[2] There is also some chance it will never happen
[3] This does not stop some authors from filling books with predictions about what will happen in and after the singularity
[4] Your computer will spit out something like "NaN" ("not a number")
Image: Pixabay