A technological singularity is a technical innovation that just sucks everything in. We have the Stone Age, when all the tools were made with stone. Then there is the Bronze Age when there was a big push to make things of bronze. Then there was the Iron Age… do you get the point? If not, when the great sailing ships came along we had “Captains of Industries” and when steam engines made everything go around we had “Wheels of Industries.”
Nowadays maybe we should have the “Microprocessors of Industries
… or the “CPUs of Industries.” As technology changes it sucks us all in and then we change our point of view; and, our way of making a living. And it is not just our industrial base. There was a time when the main function of an artist was to preserve reality; then photography came into play producing pictures that were better at representing reality; but, were artist sucked out of existence? No. Artist started produce paintings that mirrored only things that were imagined.
Yes, things that we imagined. What could be imagined two thousand years ago that we have today? The truth is many things. The Romans had plumbing, masonry, concert, and many other things. Even Stone Age man came up with many things we still use. They had leather, hand bags, clothes, and even imagination. Look at the surreal cave paintings that can be found in France. Who could tell they were going to be the distant future? These cave paintings are amazing works of imagination that don’t try to preserve reality as we see in many old art pieces; it’s strange how imagination filters through.
Oh yes, imagination. Now if you take everything that describes being a human then you must take into account imagination. The fire in our souls and the fire in our roots is imagination. From heroes to gods, from chariots to spaceships we find that they are all a product of our imaginations. What many ask when considering technological singularities is if there will be a time when our imaginations will be surpassed by technology? As we pass into an era when computers become “intelligent” we must wonder what will be our future?
If you are a watcher of “Star Trek,” “Andromeda,” or, “Star Wars” then you’ll see that imagination is something that computers will always lack. If you are more in adherence to “The Terminator,” “The Matrix,” or, “Battlestar Galactica” then you’ll wonder. Will there be a day when machines or computers take the place humans? Will the artificial intelligent of the upcoming computer generation just suck us in; will we become obsolete or will the human race continue?
In either case you’ll see that all machines are just tools for the human race. Why do human implement tools? Humans implement tools to turn their imagination into reality. Will there be a day when machines implement tools to turn the tool’s imagination into reality? Maybe there will be a day. To implement the machine’s imagination the machine must be created to do just that. Why would anyone create a machine that would be designed to carry out its own imagination? It is hard to discern why anyone would do that. The imaginative process is but a dream; but then, people can dream many troubled things. Can whatever we imagine be done? Of course not; or we would be gods. We are not gods, but we can imagine and even describe gods.
If we go back to the 1950s then we will see that there was many things that were predicted to happen didn’t happen because of many things we did not know. One hundred years from now we will find we could not predict the future; if we still even exist. Many of the things we think we know now will be laugh at as being silly or naive one hundred years from now.
From rocks to metals, from man power to machine power, from algorithms to processes, from drawing board to creations, we have traveled a long road. Will the new and upcoming technological singularity suck us out of existence? Perhaps the proper question is: are humans just a vehicle on that road of progress or are they the travelers? Call me an egotist, but I believe we are the travelers.
