Inevitability

I quite enjoyed the futuristic theme of the last article, but I’ve realized that one statement is not only wrong, but I never believed it to begin with: “the genie is out of the bottle”.

For the record, I hadn’t thought enough before writing that sentence. I was also hyped up to get to the point of the article and just thought that would be a cool thing to put there (sorry Neo-Luddites I didn’t really mean it). Nevertheless, the claim provides an opportunity to write about something I find important.

Progress

Like everyone, I too am susceptible to the idea of progress. Even people who identify as postmodernists sometimes fall prey to this meme. The singularity is one such example. To make sure we’re all using the same definition, technological singularity happens when the rate of technological development gets so high that changes in human civilization become unforeseeable and uncontrollable. Additionally, I think it’s fair to say that most people who believe in the singularity also believe we’re inexorably moving towards it—“the genie is out of the bottle”.

Okay, so why did I bring up postmodernism? Well, a rough definition of it would be skepticism of the “grand modernist narratives”. It just so happens that progress, especially of the technological kind, is one such narrative, and that the “inexorable motion towards singularity” is a manifestation of said narrative. The thing with postmodernism is that it’s like post rock—despite the different song structure and copious amounts of reverb, there’s still a lot of guitar.

It would seem then that postmodern skepticism is not air tight, and progress, or inevitability, has managed to slip through.

So with regards to progress/inevitability/singularity there’s 3 points I want to make:

  1. That the genie is not out of the bottle.
  2. The singularity isn’t just evitable, but it might be way further off than anyone thinks.
  3. And, seemingly in contradiction with 2, we’re already in the singularity.

Can you make toilet paper?

I started asking my friends this question last year, and it was usually met with laughs, but it’s a serious question. The answer is of course (unless you’re a based toilet-paper-factory worker) that you have no freaking clue what’s involved in making toilet paper besides the fact that, at some point, a tree gets cut down. Here’s a harder one: can you build a microprocessor? Or even better, a microprocessor factory. A few groups of Taiwanese might be able to, anyone else? China? The EU? What happens when this China VS Taiwan situation doesn’t go how everyone expects it to? Hypothetical “We’re all screwed” scenario: Shenzhen HiSilicon 1-up’s TSMC, and Winnie the Pooh promptly carpet bombs Taiwan into submission. Can you build a microprocessor?

It’s not just that you and most of the world can’t, a microprocessor can’t build a microprocessor. Our machines are far from being independent organisms—we aren’t looking at a genie, we aren’t even looking at a puppy dog.

Conscious of your inability to craft toilet paper, are you anywhere near as certain that the singularity is near? Or that it’s somehow inevitable? The toilet paper question is meant to reveal that out tech depends on industry, and industry along with most of contemporary civilization is an ridiculously large, interdependent graph—cloud doesn’t even come close, try galactic nebula—and as a result of this interdependence, it is fragile.

Bronze Age Collapse anyone? Who’s to say that before someone solves the Hutter Prize, everyone who knows how to make chips doesn’t pass the knowledge on, and every processor beyond that point has more and more strange esoteric faults? It wouldn’t be the first time (see page 68 of 164, the section on Multiflow).

One more consequence can be derived from the complexity of the civilizational nebula is that we’re already in the singularity. Not only are we currently in a state where “changes in human civilization become unforeseeable and uncontrollable”, we’re always in that state. Patterns can be recognized, useful predictions and preparations can be made, but the course of history isn’t amenable to logical proof. Many have tried to create such proofs, all have failed. Any apparent correctness is more than likely accidental and rarely holistic. No one has a clue what’s around the corner, most of those who say they do are trying to sell you something.

Along with certainty of the future, there is also certainty of the present. Certainty that we’re way better than our ancestors at doing stuff, they were stupid and we’re smart. Or even worse, that we’ve solved everything. In reality, the way we do things now may not even be a local maximum, it might be a local minimum. Simpler, more effective techniques are right in front of us, we just can’t see them.

Though this article has a more critical and pessimistic tone, I am optimistic about the future. You really have to be bitter to not think we live in one of the coolest most amazing times to be alive and that the road ahead is bright. But by no means will anything happen because things can only get better. History ain’t over yet.