Are you waiting for the Singularity (i.e., the Rapture for geeks)? If you haven’t heard of it, the Singularity is the rise of the machine, kind of like Terminator: one day machines will achieve consciousness and be exponentially smarter than human beings. At which point, the best option for us meat sacks will be to upload our minds into the machine, thus achieving immortality (except we saw how this turned out in The Matrix). In case you think this is all silly, there are some very intelligent people, such as Ray Kurzweil, who ardently believe in the Singularity.
Alas, I am not a believer. So as IEEE’s Spectrum magazine devoted an entire issue to the Singularity (pro and con), I was chuckling at this letter by a clever Wired reader:
My IQ is probably lower than Ray Kurzweil’s (“Stayin’ Alive,” issue 16.04). Maybe that’s why I can’t follow his reasoning on achieving immortality. He seems to be saying that once a computer can cycle quickly enough, it will stop being an adding machine and become a sentient being. Does Kurzweil also believe that once a knitting machine makes enough mittens , it will turn into his grandmother? [Peter K. Sampson, Portland, Maine]
Hope I won’t be eating my yarn, uh, words, in 2025.
LINKS:
- IEEE Spectrum: Special Report: The Singularity
- Ray Kurzweil: The Singularity Is Near
- Wired Magazine: Issue 16.06
Note: The beautiful woman above is my grandmother, Barbara, on her 95th birthday.
