Singularity Countdown

I kept on the lights after reading Daemon, by Leinad Zeraus. By far the scariest book I've read this year, this techno-thriller was written like a screenplay. And I found its interpretation of emergent Artificial Intelligence to be plausible, even questioning of the form that might take: though the book's "Daemon" is fantastically powerful and unquestionably intelligent, it is limited in well-defined ways. For example, this is quite clear in the conversations with the entity throughout the book.

Although it seemed as first to be a classic good versus evil plot, it slowly seeped into dark corners where ethics were no longer hard-fast rules, and where the reader was left wondering just who the hero was supposed to be. I don't think there was a single character left untouched, whose intentions and motivations were purely good or evil.

The story represents the few months before an imagined singularity, never clearly stated in the book, although hinted at near the end. The content is current, and I could imagine the scenario happening in the near future, or even now, with not too much of a stretch of the imagination. And the action has hollywood (or at least indie film) written all over it, although it was a bit violent for my tastes.

I was pleasantly surprised at several points in the story, most of all in the end third. At that point in the book, I had become a bit disappointed because it seemed as though the plot were crystallizing to a predictable sheriff in the white hat roping up all the bandits. Was I in for a surprise.

Not only was the ending nothing like that, by that point, I found myself agreeing with the "villain's" motives (if not his means). And the last chapter was such a mind-boggler that I'm still working out the implications in my mind.

The book ends as the best stories should. All the pieces are tied up, yet it's clear that the entire story is simply the beginning of a larger one.

There is a protagonist, even though it's unclear who that is throughout most of the book, and that person travels the archetypal hero's journey, resurrection and all.

Plus the story throws a strong punch at the corporatocracy, and that's a big plus in my book.

Here's a parting quote:

"[The mythmakers] were the ones who invented rhyme and meter — the programming language for human memory in pre-literary civilizations. It was a cultural checksum — a mnemonic device. You couldn't fuck with the code or the rhymes didn't work; and if the rhymes didn't work, people noticed. And so the knowledge of a people was passed down intact. It was a shamanic code. If you fucked with the code, then socity lost its collective mind."

I've just read two works of fiction that each have as part of their premise the potential extinction of the human race as a result of a technological singularity. What struck me, other than the plausibility of such a scenario, was how strikingly differently the stories handled it.

[Message Contains No Recognizable Symbols], by Bill Hibbard, is a dark and serious look at an inhumane future. After Life, by Simon Funk, is just as serious, although presented in a way that makes one almost long for the panacea of extinction. Both are freely available online, although After Life is also available in dead tree format.

Read my take...

Possible ethical concerns aside, the exhibit Our Body the Universe Within is a fascinating reminder of the potential for modular, replaceable limbs and organs of our post-human future. The stark collection of preserved bodies and organs bring the cadaver to the layperson, nearly an open source anatomy.

Just as interesting as the specimens on display is the history of anatomy and medicine itself. The exhibit describes how Galen performed brain surgery and removed cataracts in the second century AD, and emphasizes that research into further improvements were suppressed for over a thousand years by the Catholic church.

It fails to mention that Galen himself worked as well under religious suppression, and that his techniques for cataract removal were documented in De Medicina, a text written over a century before Galen's birth.

However, the process of cataract removal was actually developed by Sushruta, an Indian physician in the 6th century BC, considered the father of surgery. Sushruta, in fact, developed plastic surgery, with many techniques remaining unchanged into modern times.

And what's this to do with the Singularity?

It appears as though the countdown to grey goo has begun...

RepRap just announced that they have achieved replication.

And just what does that mean?

Some watchdogs of the singularity are concerned about the prospect of nanomachinery turning the earth's biosphere into a bunch of grey goo through a process of runaway replication. Of course, as you can see from the image, this machine is a far cry from nano.

The RepRap is an amazing machine, a bootstrap for the singularity. It is a 3d printer, capable of creating objects based on a schematic designed on a computer. Including, yes, itself. It is able to create all the parts necessary to clone itself, in a timespan measured in minutes.

And the really amazing thing (to me) is that the materials cost to get the thing started is less than $400. And the software is, of course, completely open source.

So what's the point?