There is a Meetup tomorrow in which the speaker will talk about what he calls, “The Two Singularities”.
Man! Did this get me thinking?!?!
The two singularities he speaks of are, 1.) The Technological Singularity (which we all know and love), and the 2.) Economic Singularity (this is the one that got me thinking). His description of the 2nd one follows…
Another type of Singularity is Economic Singularity, thatis the point when technology in machines becomes so advanced & productive that the world gross domestic product will exceed our needs as a species. A signpost for this is the growth of human labor outgrowing the use for human labor. Likely because of robotics and intelligent machines this will present logistical problems to the distribution of wealth in a population that will theoretically no longer have to work to sustain the economic viability of a comfortable existence for that population.
This was my response on that Meetup forum, but I’m really interested in what YOU think?
What happens as a result of the condition of “Economic Singularity” as far as I see it, will result in the need to examine the requirement for the concern of the distribution of wealth, itself.
Reducing scarcity (that which gives things value) to the point of negligibility is after all what we’re all up to isn’t it? The total prosperity of all human beings in a world in which the dynamics work for everyone in it?
At that point, we could comfortably get rid of the need to use money to record and track wealth distribution because there is no need to distribute something that is already equally and absolutely distributed!
Working toward this end is the reason I give for doing what I do…
Try to lean toward getting unwanted hair into the compost. Almost 100% protein (keratin) = lots of nitrogen, already dry, save it up till someone is ready to deal with it; will not attract unwanted attention from coyotes, Rattus Norvegicus, or starving homeless refugees from the Church of Money, The microbes and tiny macrobes in the compost will love it, your plants will love it, and your heart can relax from being ashamed of pretending to be a useless money drone.
(Actually, I suspect that many of us have already threaded the needles, jumped the hurdles, kissed the Duchess (Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment), or have been dragged kicking and screaming into wondering why this is not already paradise – And the Problem, too, of course. no way to be a Wounded Healer (Carl Jung) without a few especially recalcitrant wounds; and who, around here, on this green, white and blue (and brown, and blood red) earth can avoid collecting plenty of those.)
My current Evolutionary Suggestions (for myself) are:
I can’t help but like every post in this conversation! I’m excited to get my AI up and running! I said it in another post but I honestly joined the community so I can have a go to resource when I get things rolling. I’m a 24 year old entrepreneur running a personal brand called Faethflex under an overarching LLC called Lostars and I’m actually setting it up to be run completely by AI. It’s only been me for the past 4 years and I feel that as a multimedia artist, setting up the infrastructure for my brand to be run completely by AI will allow me complete creative control over product development. I’ve never heard of the economical singularity so I had to comment on this post! Looks like I’m ahead of the curve here
Xctly this is what I am saying. This is what I want to convince the intelligent creative mind in the world. We need to try to Unite this world or at least try to build a machine that can build its own world with what humans basically have in their mind. We need to implant that idea as the control unit inside a machine
I am trying to say that we have to be fast doing so we can’t wait till the Supreme power sources that literally defines life in the 4D format we live to understand our interest in making the mind so that the idea of life itself might die with this species and earth. It’s like after so many days of Holy spiritual pilgrims the hind, Muslim and whole sett of life designs tried to convince us,that the thing you are Ultimately after in this very little span of ‘life’ is actually you ‘. In a domestic language from my country it sounds like this ’ thathwamasi’.
I feel that’s the right way to understand the true problem. In order to do that people like you who Innovate and inspire have to think more selflessly about it.
We’re also going to get an EntertainmentSingularity with the combination of machine intelligence and virtual reality. Imagine the AI is your “dungeon master” and you can hook yourself into world of endless possibilities. Humans have already done a decent job recreating what it would be like in history, fantasy, or science fiction settings and video game technology is getting more advanced by the day. An AI could possibly be more accurate or imaginative.
I’d love to see George Washington, ancient china, rome, or the chance to be a viking, knight, or an adeptus astartes. How about a romantic tiki beach sunset with your SO? Done. Want to be a multi-billion dollar CEO or celebrity? Done. So many fun possibilities to keep humans busy when jobs are gone.
I see you man. I am communicating without the use of any medium created by both the type of designers I have been talking about. I am feeling that inspiration from your work and in near future technology can mingle with advanced engineering biological,chemical and philosophical aspects to form a basic set of growing entity and plant the next generation of machines in a higher diamension. We can team up to this research if you can help me to plan a proper analytical programming approach to convey the idea to all set of human beings or at least with who can dream of the world from a higher diamension
There is no Economic singularity : Econ101 : Human Needs are infinite and resources are always scarce (ultimately Time & Space/location)
There is no Technological singularity : The more complex the entity the higher the entropy.
And the major roadblock to even approximate some sort of “singularity” is that the majority of humanity behave as in a Zero-sum game.
You can see it from the everyday news speak f.e. : “wealth redistribution”, “inequality”, 99%, 1%, i have a RIGHT for X because I’m “born”, government must do my pet program … and so on
[quote=“mraptor, post:15, topic:308”]
There is no Economic singularity : Econ101 : Human Needs are infinite and resources are always scarce (ultimately Time & Space/location)
…
And the major roadblock to even approximate some sort of “singularity” is that the majority of humanity behave as in a Zero-sum game.[/quote]
An interesting dynamic to the zero-sum game is when non-human participants are involved. A system in which the human participants gain at the expense of the non-human participants (and hopefully not the other way around…)
I do agree with you, however, that an economic singularity seems unlikely. Someone will always have something that someone else wants, leading to trade and a larger economy. That “something” will likely just be increasingly in the realm of art, creativity, and virtualization (versus more basic needs like food and water).
I agree with you in the strictest definition of the Technological singularity (a feedback loop of infinitely increasing intelligence). However, I think it is highly unlikely that the human brain represents a maximum feasible intelligence level. Depending on what that maximum is in relation to the human intelligence level, any systematic feedback loop that causes an artificial intelligence to approach the maximum could have serious ramifications to society.
I still think it is wise to try and understand how the birth of such a singularity might unfold, so that future societies are better prepared.
What would happen if all the technology for producing and processing food (as unintelligent as it is right now) would suddenly disappear? We would all be starving until the population would decrease significantly to a number that can be sustained by primitive methods of aquiring food.
So not sure if it’s really a zero-sum game or the machines are already producing value for humans? Which means that intelligent ones would at least allow for a much larger population to be sustained on earth, if not significantly increase the quality of life of an individual or balance out inequalities.
… in a trade both parties win.
If a machine is self aware we have to be in a trade relation (there is no way around it, self aware entity always have needs), not zero-sum win-lose or lose-lose.
If it is not self aware, who cares
It is the same situation with non-self aware machines – they are being run by some self-aware owner (people don’t often turn on a production line to start handing out their products for free). When machines are able to produce an item much more plentifully, the value of that item goes down. As a result, fewer individuals continue to produce the item, shifting their focus to other items which are not as plentiful. The remaining producers are constantly trying to find a way to produce the item even more cheaply.
In the grand scheme of things, I imagine future societies will not really make a distinction whether they are paying a human or a self-aware machine for the things they want. The availability of all the basic needs will likely continue to grow, leading to an ever growing human population and reducing poverty and famine. Value will continue to shift away from basic needs toward the direction of culture and entertainment.
