Of the singularity, nanobots and man
By Shelton Bumgarner
While traveling through Southeast Asia last year, I finished reading the book ``The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil. The technological ``singularity,'' often jokingly called ``the rapture for nerds'' is the idea that at some point technology will go faster than our culture's ability to process it. If you think things change fast in Dynamic Korea, then you haven't seen anything yet.
Because of the book, I found myself having a lot of conversations about the future with my fellow travelers. In the book, Kurzweil writes that we are hurdling towards a technological utopia where we upload our minds into computers and essentially live forever. Kurzweil casually dismisses the dystopian notion that there may be a downside to doing such a thing.
Another idea that Kurzweil's book addresses really got me thinking about on my trip was nanotechnology. Nanotech, as it's also called, works on a molecular scale and has the potential to give mankind powers over matter previously reserved for the gods themselves. The technology is in its infancy, but Kurzweil argues that soon enough it will be a dominate force in human existence.
The comparison about nanotechnology during my trip went like this ― in 1929, if we would be having a similar discussion about the future we would be talking the possibly of a fantastic ``superbom''"that turned matter into energy that could destroy a city. Now, we may have to worry about self-replicating nanobots that turn cities into goo. It may take 20 years, but at some point the advanced nations of the world ― including Korea ― will have to deal with the threat of militarized nanotech.
The comparisons between nuclear technology and nanotechnology worry me a great deal. Both can be used for great good and unimaginable harm. Broadly, on a theoretical level, one day instead of flying a spaceship to Mars, humanity may simply send a nanobot factory there and zap to it copies of individuals who would then colonize the planet. However, the same technology could be used to destroy a city on Earth as thousands of ``nanobots'' swarm a city and ``eat'' it.
Numerous other possible nightmare scenarios exist regarding nanotech. One could imagine an uncontrollable ``gray good'' of nanobots ― much like something of the 1950's movie The Blob ― rampaging the countryside after an industrial accident. Or worse still, a terrorist group could release a swarm of self-replicating nanobots simply hoping to spread fear and chaos.
While Kurzweil has a generally positive view of the singularity and its associate technological ideas, other equally brilliant minds do not. Such diverse minds as Bill Joy, formerly of Sun Microsystems and the Unabomber both have expressed concerns about nanotech and the Singularity. Joy expressed his fears in the seminal work, ``Why The Future Doesn't Need Us," while the Unabomber wrote a techno-political creed that would ultimately be his downfall.
In his work, Joy says, ``The experiences of the atomic scientists clearly show the need to take personal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, and the way in which a process can take on a life of its own. We can, as they did, create insurmountable problems in almost no time flat. We must do more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised and shocked by the consequences of our inventions.''
On a more immediate level, the technology that I find the most worrisome is called ``the Internet of Things.'' This technology ― one that researchers in China are actively investigating ― would give everything an Internet address so it could be monitored. Supporters of this technology I'm sure believe that the subsequent ``data smog'' would allow us to interact with the ordinary objects around us in a new, revolutionary way. I find the Internet of Things very creepy on a personal level.
I don't know about you, but I am not really comfortable with the idea of Communists - or anybody else for that matter ― having the ability to monitor my every move via the Internet.
The Internet of Things, nanotechnology and uploading brains into computers are all part of the nascent ``transhuman'' movement, of which Kurzweil is a leader. Transhumanists believe that humans may quickly evolve into something just as much machine as man. Kurzweil believes the Singularity will occur sometime around 2045.
Regardless of if the future needs us or not, it's on its way faster than any of us can imagine.
The author, a freelance writer living in the United States, was the co-founder and publisher of the English journal ROKon Magazine, based out of Seoul. He can be reached at migukin@gmail.com.