A historian's perspective on transformative technological change, how humans construct narratives, and how AI and psychedelics research have overlapped.
The discussion on a topic I find incredibly compelling: the concept of the singularity. However, I must express my disappointment with how the conversation unfolded. It was frustratingly superficial, barely scratching the surface of a subject that deserves much more thorough exploration.
Reflecting on my own experiences, I remember growing up in the 1970s and living through the early 2020s without the looming shadow of an apocalypse. Life, for the most part, seemed uneventful, punctuated only by events like the mortgage crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, which, significant as they were, didn't quite herald the end of the world.
Yet, today's narrative is markedly different. We're seeing a growing consensus among academics and scientists – a group far removed from the stereotypical doomsday prophets – who are seriously discussing our trajectory towards a singularity. This isn't about religious, hippie, or New Age delusions; it's grounded in mathematical calculations and scientific reasoning.
Take, for instance, the work of visionaries like Ray Kurzweil. He analyzed the accelerating rate of energy consumption as a marker of societal progress. Now, we're witnessing a similar acceleration in the realms of artificial intelligence and computing systems. Even Terence McKenna, whom I once dismissed as a mere "hippie tripper," seems to have been onto something similar, albeit with less mathematical rigor. He spoke about the increasing rate of change – not just that changes are happening more rapidly, but that the pace of change itself is accelerating.
Now, we have numerous voices in the AI field echoing this sentiment. The more we delve into it, the more our world resembles a complex computational system, making the idea of reaching a singularity point increasingly plausible. It's a notion that suggests we might be on the cusp of a significant transformation, perhaps even a 'reset' of the game, so to speak.
I can't help but feel that we are indeed living through an unusual time. However, the discussion I listened to failed to delve deeply into these nuances and implications. It was a missed opportunity to explore a topic that not only deserves our full attention but also demands a thoughtful and comprehensive examination.
The discussion on a topic I find incredibly compelling: the concept of the singularity. However, I must express my disappointment with how the conversation unfolded. It was frustratingly superficial, barely scratching the surface of a subject that deserves much more thorough exploration.
Reflecting on my own experiences, I remember growing up in the 1970s and living through the early 2020s without the looming shadow of an apocalypse. Life, for the most part, seemed uneventful, punctuated only by events like the mortgage crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, which, significant as they were, didn't quite herald the end of the world.
Yet, today's narrative is markedly different. We're seeing a growing consensus among academics and scientists – a group far removed from the stereotypical doomsday prophets – who are seriously discussing our trajectory towards a singularity. This isn't about religious, hippie, or New Age delusions; it's grounded in mathematical calculations and scientific reasoning.
Take, for instance, the work of visionaries like Ray Kurzweil. He analyzed the accelerating rate of energy consumption as a marker of societal progress. Now, we're witnessing a similar acceleration in the realms of artificial intelligence and computing systems. Even Terence McKenna, whom I once dismissed as a mere "hippie tripper," seems to have been onto something similar, albeit with less mathematical rigor. He spoke about the increasing rate of change – not just that changes are happening more rapidly, but that the pace of change itself is accelerating.
Now, we have numerous voices in the AI field echoing this sentiment. The more we delve into it, the more our world resembles a complex computational system, making the idea of reaching a singularity point increasingly plausible. It's a notion that suggests we might be on the cusp of a significant transformation, perhaps even a 'reset' of the game, so to speak.
I can't help but feel that we are indeed living through an unusual time. However, the discussion I listened to failed to delve deeply into these nuances and implications. It was a missed opportunity to explore a topic that not only deserves our full attention but also demands a thoughtful and comprehensive examination.
I wouldn’t describe that as consensus at all. See this for some counterarguments: https://thegradient.pub/why-transformative-artificial-intelligence-is-really-really-hard-to-achieve/