In mathematics, a singularity is where the equations go “non-linear”. Inputs go in, but the outputs are beyond understanding. In physics, it’s where the laws of three-dimensional Cartesian reality break down.
Ray Kurzweil hijacked the term and applied it to AI and exponential computing power: Moore’s Law would bring us all past the point where technology accelerates beyond human comprehension.
For Techno-Utopians, among them – the transhumanists, the Singularity will bring about a kind of eschatological event, a computerized “End Times” like a Rapture moment wherein technology acquires more brainpower than all of humanity combined, and deftly solves all our problems (unless the techno-doomers are right, and it annihilates us instead).
In Frazzledrip Overdrive, a recent piece that looked at ever-accelerating Future Shock, and the iterations of mass formation psychosis that causes – I was probably guilty of “burying the lede”.
It was that my current working theory is that “The Singularity” has already occurred:
I think that we are already in the post-singularity era. Right now.
It happened within the last couple years with the AI wave – of third major technological wave of this century (internet, crypto, now AI) and the eighth major technological leap since the industrial revolution (electricity, radio/TV, telephones, semi-conductors, personal computers).
Now we’re past the point where the code is coding. The feedback loop there is already underway, and it too is accelerating…
What I mean by that is because we’re using AI and LLMs to cut code (create programming source code), and beyond that, those AI engines are producing computer code that is itself generating more code – we’ve essentially crossed the defining barrier of what the Singularity is supposed to be – which technology creating more intelligent versions of itself.
Granted – it has not resulted in an instantaneous Rapture-like moment of technological quantum leap across all aspects of our reality yet.
But if you haven’t noticed – since the advent of GPT 3 in 2023, itself an iteration of previous LLMs that were playing over at least a decade, the newer, faster, smarter iterations have been coming at a faster cadence and at shorter intervals.
Hellbound and Down 