Technological Singularity

It needs to be said that the Technological Singularity is the latest iteration of Submissive Religion. UFOs, Angels, gods and pantheons. Just give up and they'll take care of everything. Sounds a lot like Parents, when you were a kid. Thing is, if you want that kind of Slavery, North Korea wants YOU.

People get obsessive about Star Trek technology which only works because the writer needed it to for the episode, and much of it is never used again. This is largely because Star Trek writers are hired piecemeal so despite the Roddenberry Bible (the book of rules for the show setting) people often cheated anyway to tell a good story. Or a mediocre story. Star Trek was ruled over by incompetents and genuinely evil people following an apocalypse caused by pro-rights genetic engineering super-humans. They end up becoming genocidal demagogues and there's a nuclear war and a century of Dark Age, this time with guns and mind control drugs. Eventually the Federation evolves and humans take their Submissive pacifism into space where they conveniently fail to do something about terrible tragedy under the auspices of the "Prime Directive" which in modern terms is defined as "convenient plot hole twaddle". Bad writing, in point of fact. But as technology goes, Star Trek is one of the few modern shows that depicts a sort of weakened technological singularity, one not ruled by AI's though it should be, but money is pointless due to free energy and replicators being able to make food and goods on demand for free. Makes having a job rather pointless. They also have free travel by destroying your body and making a new one with your memories. Which is genuinely horrifying.

The Terminator movies (based on books) are about a post singularity AI that decides to kill all humans. Its pretty much the AI from Wargames with robot helpers. This is pretty much what the UN wants to do to the world, only each individual member of the UN thinks they'll kill every nation but themselves. The UN are creepy genocidal maniacs. I don't like them very much. Terminator is probably one of those things they all secretly own the Box Sets to and watch before every session. Creepy. But it IS a post-technological singularity world. Just not one for people.

Star Wars was just Flash Gordon with a better soundtrack, according to its merchandiser creator who just sold the rights to Disney. Fun for kids, inherently flawed. Oh, and all the series apparently revolve around big weapon ships. And George Lucas was anti-war (Vietnam) so the rebels are actually the North Vietnamese and the Empire was USA. Puts a little spin on things, doesn't it? Lucas is not a genius. He repackaged Flash Gordon and gave it a grungy look that people liked. Added some Buddhism and spent a lot of money doping up his artists so they'd create really freaky looking aliens. In the context of bad acid trips and schitzophrenia, the space monsters are suddenly a lot more comprehensible, aren't they? I saw the original Star Wars when I was seven, the perfect age, on opening day with my mom at the Lakeside Cinemas in Santa Rosa, back before THX sound, or even Stereo Sound in theaters. We were a test theater, a couple weeks before the rest of the nation saw it. It was amazing. It was a wonderful childhood memory. Star Wars technology bumped up against mystical Buddhism that worked in the show, but its not real science so its hard to take seriously. The AIs in that series aren't much and the technology seems to be focused on space travel, habitats, and warfare. There's planets of buildings, like Coruscant, where I suppose you could claim singularity happened but it seems to have ignored people largely.

The Matrix is laughable, technologically, and has comic book level incompetence, but its sort of a Technological Singularity, like Terminator, where AIs decided that people were the problem. They don't seem to have their own society, however, just focus on managing ours at a 1996 level which isn't that impressive. The point about doing our thinking for us means it stopped being our society is sort of true. That's about the extent of logic for the series.

People who worship the Singularity love to imagine all sorts of things, like free energy and all engineering being handled by AIs that bootstrap themselves. You could argue that Deep Thought was a Singularity AI, the computer from Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. The Apple Computer logo on the screen explains a lot why it failed to get the question, and why the answer was so useless. Berkeley V Unix has many flaws, and the Apple OS is based on that. What they really want is toys to make life easier without actually working for it. And problems they haven't solved themselves to go away. Just let the AIs deal with it.

Since Apple Computer's cult leader is now communing with God DIRECTLY and has not deigned to return to Earth and share the secrets of the universe as predicted by its faithful, I get the idea that Apple's falling stock value will continue until nobody works there and its properties sell off. Apple wants the singularity BAD. In the WORST WAY. Because their entire business plan is based on exploiting their workforce until their coding projects sell, then those coders get a percentage. Not wages while they work. Its all, apparently, on spec(ulation). However, Apple also sells "upgrades" that only partially work. Most of the time, new Features suck, according to Apple users and more reviews than I can count. You have to pay AGAIN to get the feature you already paid for to work. Great business plan, as long as your customers are morons. So far, that's been true. Which is why I refer to Apple customers as Cultists. They're unable to parse basic success or failure, instead pretending all is well. I wonder how much longer that computer company will exist?

A singularity AI could fix Apple computer's code, enabling it to work the first time. And do it cheap enough Apple might be able to afford to do what Microsoft does, which is free patches to fix what's broken rather than making you pay again and again. This is one of the reasons I don't mock Microsoft. They're more honest and don't double and triple charge you. They also support all hardware. Apple doesn't. Neither does Linux. If you want a computer you can buy semi random components for, and various USB toys, Microsoft is what you want. With Apple? So sorry! Not approved! This is the Totalitarian world model they accidentally created, self mockery of the worst and most hypocritical kind. LOL.

The biggest problem with the Singularity is it presupposes that just because you have AIs that are smarter than we are, they can solve our energy crisis... which is not terribly logical. Wishful thinking, really. Just because you have AI's doesn't mean you have robots to do anything with them. And just because you can build robots to build things for the AI's running them, it doesn't make them mobile, or solve the power density problem either. Robots aren't magic. They need power to run or they can't move or think. This is a big part of why they're mostly stationary.

Google Cars are supposed to be an autonomous driving car with radar to emergency stop if a kid runs into the road ahead of the thing. Or at least I hope its got that. They're testing them in Reno, if you can believe it. That makes me nervous. Better than a cab driver or drunk driving fine, I suppose, but seriously? Give up that much control? Not anytime soon. Not with the quality of computing being where it is now. I'll pass. When I finally get my Motorcycle license and get a scooter to ride around town, and hopefully to work when its warm and dry enough, I'm going to laugh constantly. I might even put it on the loop in MP3 and play it as I drive through town on a small stereo. Just loud enough to barely hear, rather than annoy the world.

I can't see the singularity doing many positive things in the real world of energy scarcity. If the AIs don't figure out solutions to electric batteries and enforce cheap solar and build up the necessary infrastructure to bring water to the deserts, what good are they? These are the major human problems. People kill over living space because we don't have food and water where we need it. These can be solved with cheap energy but we don't have cheap energy anymore. We have expensive and dirty energy and its not going to get better anytime soon, if ever. And that sucks. But that's how the real world works. The above stories of Technological Singularity are scifi fantasies, after all. They won't work in the real world. And that's just how it is.