Imagine Life After You, Impossible, Not For Our Computer Overlords

By /
Singularity - will it happen, Kevin Kelly thinks not
The Singularity is an illusion that will be constantly retreating -- always "near" but never arriving. We'll wonder why it never came after we got AI. Then one day in the future, we'll realize it already happened. The super AI came, and all the things we thought it would bring instantly -- personal nanotechnology, brain upgrades, immortality -- did not come. Instead other benefits accrued, which we did not anticipate, and took long to appreciate. Since we did not see them coming, we look back and say, yes, that was the Singularity.

But then again what about The Maes-Garreau Point?
Singularity or not, it has become very hard to imagine what life will be like after we are dead. The rate of change appears to accelerate, and so the next lifetime promises to be unlike our time, maybe even unimaginable. Naturally, then, when we forecast the future, we will picture something we can personally imagine, and that will thus tend to cast it within range of our own lives.


The Technium blog, making me think for quite some time - give it a whirl

Comments

Post a Comment

Be kind

Popular articles

Make Your Public Event Calendar Usable To All

Image
If you run a sports club, this post is for you. If you are on a community committee, this post is also for you If you host events, this is for you. If you put on shows, this is for you. In fact, if you do anything that has a date/time component that you'd like to share with people, this is for you . Yep, probably for all of us. Sharing calendars can be both: an effective way of letting everyone know a complete and utter technical pain in the bottomly region If you've posted up an events page onto your website you know how difficult it is to keep up to date, how the readers have to keep coming back to get the latest changes and don't even think about integrating with somebody else's "events page". Ok, so we all know the problem. What's the solution? iCalendar (normally shortened to iCal) ... yep, it's a geek word that you will come to know and love just as much as RSS. In fact, think of it as RSS for calendars. But that's enough geekery, if you want

On a scale of 1 to 10, how is your day going?

Image
So many people have had me ask them this simple question, " On a scale of 1 to 10, how is your day going? (where 1 is as low as it can get)" Once the person responds, you then simply askm " Is there anything I could do to help move it from a 6 to a 7? " (or . . . "from a 3 to a 4" or "from a 10 to an 11"). Just reach out and ask ... I cannot recommend this highly enough as both for support people / friends / family that are keeping an active eye on someone in their life, but also just as a great way to connect not matter what the situation. So where did it come from - this is a technique that Jane McGonicall  ( @avantgame ) picked up from her friend Michael, a philanthropist and entrepreneur and uses in a Super Better "quest" called Plus-One Better - here are the complete instructions. QUEST: Plus-One Better Pick three people: 1. Someone who would like to hear from you 2. Someone you would like to hear from 3. Some

The Difference Between One Million And One Billion

Image
It's feels like a billion is just a bit bigger than a million. Obviously it's bigger but it fits on the same scale as a million, surely. It doesn't. A billion is so so so much bigger than a million. I've trawled the internet finding graphics and videos that show the VAST difference between one million and one billion. Oh, and just to finish with a different misconception about space starting with the classic opening line from the great Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

AI Generated Images, 2024

Image
The " AI bubble " that we're currently experiencing started on 30th November 2022 (a Wednesday for those asking), the day OpenAI released ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) and everyone and their dog went bonkers for it, AI, and the new world order. As I write this I am yet to experience anything astounding in my life from any "AI" from any tech company of any size. I have noticed that Google Assistant is getting worse, Google Maps is slower, but apart from that (which I assume is "AI" related), nothing. Note: I am yet to work with any organisation that utilises "AI" in anything more than, "Ooh, look, shiny new toy". Generative "AI" is actually what ChatGPT, Gemini, and many other types of "AI" are, systems capable of generating text, images, videos, code, or other data using generative models, often in response to prompts. I am not impressed by text or code, I should be but rarely am. I will alway