How can We Handle the Singularity?

© Fernando Caracena, 2015

Human Time-scales and Rythms

Will Accelerating Progress leave people behind?

Progress is happening at a quickening pace. Originally, thought to be exponential, i. e. having a fixed doubling time, RayKurtzweil has more recently suggested that technological progress is developing along a double exponential growth curve.  In this type of progress, the doubling time for exponential growth, itself an exponential, keeps getting shorter with time. Kurtzweil expects the technical growth curve following that pattern, to turn nearly vertical somewhere around the year 2045. At that time, the kind of dramatic changes that we have seen happen over the last hundred years, will then happen almost overnight. Some aspects and implications of this type of growth are described in Frank Diana's  blog post, "Digital Transformation of Business and Society".

In the near future (around 2045), progress will come at the human race so fast that nobody will be able to keep up with it, unless assisted by "the cloud computer system". Ray Kurtzweil calls the time when man and machine merge and learns how to overcome death, "the Singularity". Being on the forefront of future research and invention, Kurtzweil is rapturous about the prospects of a Singularity. He figures that if he can last until that time, biomedical technology developed by then should be able to prolong his life indefinitely. He plans to live forever in an ever young body--all made possible by the incredible developments of technology.

Note that the concept of a technological singularity was first proposed by the polymath John Von Neumann. But even though he was not the first to originate the concept, Kurzweil has linked the idea of the singularity to that of the organic evolution of life itself that goes back almost four billion years. Plotting the rate in which organisms have become progressively more organized and complex in time and continuing that plot into that of technological progress, Kurtzweil finds that the double exponential growth in complexity of information encoded in systems is continuous from the birth of life on Earth up to that of present technology. In that case, the double exponential growth rate in complexity of organic systems continues in the same path of evolution from the emergence of single celled organisms to the growth of modern computer systems and associated systems involving robotics and automation. The idea that technology is an extension of the evolution of life forms is presented in a talk by Kevin Kelly.

What does this mean for the Individual ?

The approaching singularity is fraught with serious implications for young people, especially regarding career plans and training. Many a young person starting out on a career path usually first decides what he generally wants to do to make a living. Once he has that goal, the rest of his plans fall into place. But, suppose that the change in technology rapidly eliminates old, and creates new, professions so rapidly that it happens within the time a person spends getting a university degree?

If progress comes at us too fast, it may destroy the plans of people who planned too far ahead. The singularity itself may destroy the value of human providence. A person would have to develop extrasensory powers to be able to anticipate and to plan to go into an emerging technology just as he is leaving college.

Working Menial Jobs to Finance College

In a previous couple of posts, I describe how I began my college career working at a menial job to get me started,  "College in Four Years and no Student Loans, Part I" and Part II. In those days it was possible for someone to work a low-level job over the summer to finance his going to college over the winter. Some of the sacrifices in doing this are moves like having to live at home; giving up the idea of having an automobile; and rely on getting rides from friend's or public transportation. Also, during the four years it took to get a B S degree, I did not date, although flirting was a cheap alternative.

Given the meager value of menial work, its inadequate pay, and the high cost of education, what I did would probably not be possible now without resorting to student loans, which are a new form of indentured servitude. Being a smart cookie, I would have probably opted out. Why play a game that you cannot win, nor even break even? I would have probably chosen to tool around Europe and perhaps go to a German University which at present may be free and open to foreign students.

College Loans

In the recent past, we had many students who were very optimistic about the future. They though that bad times in employment was temporary, and that they might as well increase their earning potential by going back to school, even if they had to borrow. The change in job prospects turned out to be systemic. When they graduated, they found that they still could not get high-level jobs to pay off college-loans. Although some students have begun to get wise to the situation, too many, like lemmings are marching in the same disastrous direction.  There are too many young people in our society paying off expensive college loans by working low-paying jobs. It does not take a college eduction to wait on tables or wash dishes. But wait, even those jobs are disappearing!

Robotics

In the automobile industry, many of the assembly line jobs were eliminated by robots. Japan led the way in automobile assembly by robotics. The promise was that robots would eliminate the drudgery of labor, thereby elevating the worth of human capital, which could become invested in higher pursuits. But meanwhile, many high paying middle class jobs were eliminated.

While laidoff workers were trying to get back on their feet, they could always get menial jobs.  Now, robotics are even eliminating menial jobs. The company, Momentum,  is applying robotics to the food preparation industry. A lot of the cutting pealing and frying is eliminated for humans, and out come the robotic hamburgers. Some of the fast food restaurant chains are looking into the possibility of becoming fully automated. The customer selects from a computer monitor displaying a menu; pays through a slot that accepts paper currency or credit cards; and then picks up the order at a special dispenser window. You no longer give your order to a pimply faced kid. You punch it in yourself, and a whole automated process begins that delivers your orders untouched by human hands. Customers are replacing the hired help in most industries: you pump your own gas; do your banking at an automated teller machine; punch in your own order and pick it up at a restaurant; and order all kinds of things online from a web page. Human interaction is disappearing from the transactional world of commerce. This is lowering the costs of doing business.

Robotics and Automation Destroy Jobs as a Means of Living

In the past, when someone suffered a financial reverse, that person could always find work. The pay might not have been good, the hours lousy, but it kept the wolf away from the door. Today, most of the population relies on jobs to make a living. However, there are disturbing signs that the job market is about to collapse. When a well know fast-food, hamburger chain is experimenting with automating preparation and sales of sandwiches you know that some big crunch is coming. In this way, the fast food restaurant avoids paying even the minimum wage.

Robots are threatening low-level jobs everywhere.; and, robots are another source of dislocation even for skilled workers. Where some manufacturing remains, the factories can be made faster, more efficient and cheaper by using robots. In that case, fewer workers are needed on the assembly line. They are replaced by a few engineers that look over the whole process to make sure that something does not go array. If a glitch appears in the production line, they can stop the whole system to give a small crew of engineers access to trouble shoot the problem. Eventually, even this process may become automated, and the software for it written in the Far East.

The Drop toward Zero

There is a ray of hope in all this, which I mentioned in "What is Left for Humans? Part 1"

The New Economy

Discouraged to see how humanity is presently drifting backward in how it deals with its own issues,  a new optimism was rekindled in me by my realizing what Jeremy Rifkin saw as a pathology in Capitalism, in the form of zero marginal cost, is actually a good sign for future development. We are actually in a period of great transition of humanity: the end of Homo Sapiens versions 1.x and the beginning of Homo sapiens 2.0. What Rifkin sees as the problem is one face of the main problem of growing pains in economic terms. The real problem is a set of dysfunctions that have developed within humanity itself.

So long as the free market system remains free enough, the solution to the above mentioned problems will work out for humanity. The result will be a better world. However, there are strong political forces opposing the free market. Controlled markets are backed by self-styled "elites" and obsoleting industries. Once successful and armed with unlimited quantities of fiat currencies, these elements fight to maintain their position against the great tidal wave, the singularity, through controlled markets and monetary policy.

As a result of the accelerating advances in technology, we are in a negative feedback loop in the pricing of everything. Wages are collapsing, and so are prices. Zero is the ultimate limit. To the central banks it must look like a sever case of deflation. Their response is to drop interest rates; but that only adds fuel to the deflationary spiral.

Crowd Funding

In the past much of technological advance was funded by the rich who formed pools of risk capital. For the chance that they took with funding the new technology, they demanded a significant percent of the ownership of the new technological companies. Now, many people of moderate means with some savings find that there is no traditional place to put these surplus funds to gain something for their thrift. The Internet has now furnished the means for such investors to pool small amounts of capital to fund new start up. Further, the cost of technological development is dropping fast. This means that the advance of technology has provided capitalism with a new tool to fight against the neo-Luddite efforts to hold onto their "elite" past.

"Intellectual Property"

The fight to hold on to the past glory was fought under the banner of "intellectual property", the champion of which was the late Jack Valenti. The upshot of all this ruckus is that I could get into trouble if I drew the picture of a cartoon mouse and showed it on this post. Yet the famous character was taken originally from another source before anyone though to copyright cartoon characters. There is an old joke that Bill Gates once tried to patent "ones" and "zeroes", which are of course the ubiquitous backbone of all computer related software. Modern life is filled with wannabe gatekeepers.

Despite Jack Valenti's fight to preserve the music and entertainment industry, it did not survive intact. It has suffered significant changes. A Wikipedia article describes it as follows:

The music industry has been undergoing drastic changes since the advent of widespread digital distribution of music. A conspicuous indicator of this is total music sales: since 2000, sales of recorded music have dropped off substantially^[2][3] while live music has increased in importance.^[4] The largest music retailer in the world is now digital: Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store.^[5]

...

Changes in the music industry have given consumers access to a wider variety of music than ever before, at a price that gradually approaches zero.^[16] However, consumer spending on music-related software and hardware increased dramatically over the last decade, providing a valuable new income-stream for technology companies such as Apple Inc. and Pandora Radio.

The Singularity and Zero Costs

As we approach the Singularity, the cost of everything, including wages, is dropping toward zero. If it actually happens, as expected by Kurtzweil, we do not know the shape of the future, once that threshold is crossed. The possibilites on the other side of the singularity constitute a rich mine of raw material for incredible science fiction.

Meanwhile, some of those who were very successful in the past try to maintain "elite" positions by political and monetary means, which have now grown obsolete. But the whole process feeds on itself like the final collapse of a heavy star, when even the gravitational pull of the pressure, itself an energy density, feeds the collapse. Beware, because along the way, there may be much violence fed by panic by those "in charge".