James D. Miller - Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World

There are things in this book that could mess with your head.

Vernor Vinge, computer scientist; Hugo Award-winning author, A Fire Upon the Deep; essayist, The Coming Technological Singularity

The arrow of progress may kick upwards into a booming curve or it may terminate in an existential zero. What it will not do is carry on as before. With great insight and fore thought, Millers Singularity Rising prepares us for the forking paths ahead by teasing out the consequences of an artificial intelligence explosion and by staking red flags on the important technological problems of the next three decades.

Peter Thiel, self-made technology billionaire; co-founder, Singularity Summit

Many books are fun and interesting, but Singularity Rising is fun and interesting while focusing on some of the most important pieces of humanitys most important problem.

Luke Muehlhauser, executive director, Singularity Institute

Weve waited too long for a thorough, articulate, general-audience account of modern thinking on exponentially increasing machine intelligence and its risks and rewards for humanity. Miller provides exactly that, and I hope and expect that his book will greatly raise the quality of debate and research in this critical area.

Aubrey de Grey, leading biomedical gerontologist; former AI researcher

How can we be intelligent about superintelligence? Its finessed agility steers its course through the terrain of analytics and into the salty basin of awareness. It is wise. It is a nonpartisan player. It flirts freely with friendliness. Miller understands this, even if his approach is at times jolting. Singularity Rising, by default, turns the reader to question the true value of intelligence and hopefully realize that it must be found in the bosom of its wisdom.

Natasha Vita-More, chairman, Humanity+; editor,
The Transhumanist Reader

SINGULARITY RISING

SURVIVING AND THRIVING IN A SMARTER, RICHER, AND MORE DA NGEROUS WORLD

James D. Miller

BenBella Books, Inc.

Dallas, TX

This book is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice. A healthcare professional should be consulted regarding your specific medical situation. The author and publisher specifically disclaim any and all liability arising directly or indirectly from the use of any information contained in this book. The mention of a product or entity in this book does not imply endorsement of said product or entity by the author or publisher. Finally, medicine is not an exact science, and the author and publisher do not offer any assurances that the information contained herein will cure or prevent any medical condition.

Copyright 2012 by James D. Miller

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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ISBN 978-1-9366-6178-7

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I dedicate this book to those working to bring about a positive
Singularity, particularly the employees and financial backers of the
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
On your labors might rest the future of mankind.

We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.

Vernor Vinge

Economic prosperity comes from human intelligence. Consider some of the most basic human inventionsthe wheel, the alphabet, the printing pressand later, more complex and advanced inventions such as indoor plumbing, automobiles, radio, television, and vaccines. All are products of the human brain. Had our species been a bit less bright, these inventions might have escaped us. Yet we can only begin to imagine the many additional wondrous technologies we might now possess had evolution made us even smarter.

In the past, human intelligence was a gift of evolution. No more. We are now using our intelligence to figure out ways of increasing our brainpower.

The rapidly falling cost of gene sequencing will soon let us unlock the genetic basis of intelligence. Combining this knowledge with already existing fertility treatments will allow parents to raise the average intelligence of their children, while merging this genetic data with future reproductive technologies might yield children smarter than have ever existed. Even if democratic countries reject these biotechnologies, the historically pro-eugenic Chinese probably wont. As I predicted in 2007,

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers another path to expanding the sum of intelligence available to mankind. Over the coming decades, scientists may take advantage of continuous exponential improvements in computing hardware either to create stand-alone, general-purpose machine intelligences or to integrate AI into our own brains.

Vast increases in biological and machine intelligences will create whats being called the Singularitya threshold of time at which AIs that are at least as smart as humans, and/or augmented human intelligence, radically remake civilization.

A belief in a coming Singularity is slowly gaining traction among the technological elite. As the New York Times reported in 2010, Some of Silicon Valleys smartest and wealthiest people have embraced the Singularity. These early adopters include two self-made billionaires: Peter Thiel, a financial backer of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and Larry Page, who helped found Singularity University. Peter Thiel was one of the founders of PayPal, and after selling the site to eBay, he used some of his money to become the key early investor in Facebook. Larry Page cofounded Google. Thiel and Page obtained their riches by successfully betting on technology.

Famed physicist Stephen Hawking is so concerned about a bad Singularity-like event that he warned that computers might become so intelligent that they could take over the world. Hawking also told the president of the United States that unless we have a totalitarian world order, someone will design improved humans somewhere.

1.Rocks exist!

Strange as it seems, the existence of rocks actually provides us with evidence that it is possible to build computers powerful enough to take us to a Singularity. There are around 10 trillion trillion atoms in a 1-kilogram (2.2-pound) rock, and as inventor and leading Singularity scholar Ray Kurzweil writes: