The Singularity Is Near

I've just been whiling away time reading an article about Ray Kurzweil, the famous businessman and futurologist. That lack of discipline on my part could be costly, if Ray is correct! That's because has predicted that 2045 is the year of THE singularity when humans will have to be given supplementary brain capacity to deal with all the knowledge and information surrounding us and process it to make accurate decisions. I gather that we'll have to attach our brains to a battery of ultra-fast computer chips (or CPU) and storage back-up.

Of course, he couldn't know that I'll be turning 100 in that year, which raises some interesting questions. Because of my age, will I face discrimination in the surgery needed to augment my brain capacity? I hope not because I'm hoping adopt his health regime that he predicts will make him immortal, which will be fun. Imagine this, too. Even if I pass away shortly after my 100th birthday, I will have immortality of a kind. This is because the extra CPU and storage capacity wired to my brain will be able to download the contents of my memory for posterity. Still, I'd like to be around to experience all that life will increasingly offer.

No doubt, good readers, you'll conclude that I'm already becoming deranged and should offer myself for euthanasia. But, consider this! According to Ray's predictions, we will witness in the 21st century something like 20,000 years of progress at today's rate, or roughly 10% compound over the 100 years. That's why I castigated myself at the start of this piece. If knowledge, information and processing power are expanding exponentially at that rate, then reading that article could be a major indiscretion on my part - except perhaps it inspired this post. We've got no time to lose before being swamped by technology!

All this prompts some more predictions on my part. If Kurzweil is only half right, businesses and government are in for some exquisite turmoil. In fact, it will hurt government far more than business because the latter is far faster on its feet and business almost always leads in the technology game. Government, in practice, is desperately slow in making most decisions because of the need to debate different points of view and seek compromise solutions. Do you want to bet that by 2045 most of government will become completely dysfunctional? This process might bring more uncertainty to human affairs than all of chaos theory, complexity theory, and quantum mechanics put together.

I must stop here and start revising my Monterrey paper accordingly.

AS