The 2nd Great Disappointment
H.P. LaLancette
April 24th, 2007

One of the main errors Transhumanists make with their religion is that they are way
too specific with the date when the Messiah (a.k.a. the Strong A.I.) will come to initiate
the Rapture (a.k.a. brain uploading). For instance, Kurzweil believes the Messiah will
arrive in 2029. FM-2030 thought it would arrive in, yep, 2030. In being so specific with
the date of the Rapture, they are assuring that their religion will fail when the date
passes and nothing happens.

Of course, the main reason the date of ~2030 is chosen is because many
Transhumanists are baby boomers who are desperately afraid of dying. So they
conveniently make up a date that coincides with when the average boomer will reach
the average human life span of ~85 years.

Successful religions are suitably vague with their prognostications. It is enough to say
that believers will be saved at some future date but leave the when and where up to
their imaginations.

As it so happens, this pattern of religious prediction followed by disappointment
happened at least one other time in American history when the Millerite
Dispensationalist movement in upstate New York failed to predict the coming of the
Messiah on October 22nd, 1844. Interestingly, this Great Disappointment did not lead to
the end of the Millerite movement but rather transformed the movement into the
Seventh-day Adventists who are still around today. The Adventists merely
reinterpreted the prediction as being when the process of Investigative Judgment
began in heaven. This is still part of the theology of Seventh-day Adventists today.

So, maybe I spoke too soon about the end of the Religion of Transhumanism in ~2030.
Following the 2nd Great Disappointment, I suspect that Transhumanists will still believe
in the inevitability of the techno-Messiah, just that the date was off a bit for a variety
of reasons. Expect cryonics to see a huge boom around 2030 as thousands of
Transhumanists freeze themselves. There will likely be many offshoots of the Religion of
Transhumanism at this time, each one just as bizarre as the original.

I have tooled around Google a bit trying to find some more info on a prediction that was in the short video called "Shift Happens".

By just 2010, the total of all technical knowledge will start to double every 3 days. This translates into 5.62E121 times the knowledge by the end of a 365.25 day period. So, every year you keep adding the exponent, in logs the afore was 121.75 or 10 to the power of 121.75. So by 2012 log 243.50 times the knowledge base of 2010. 

By 2015, log 608.76, or a google to the six power increase in the knowledge base.

The above would assume that, if we went from a doubling of knowledge every 1 to 2 years at the beggining of this decade to every 36 hours be the end, that the doubling rate wouldn't actually contract even faster. One site actually stated that they sided with a prognostication of a doubling rate of just millionths of a second just after the end of this decade.

Now, I am actually suspicious of the methodology of such a prediction myself, but if it is even within 50 orders of magnitude of being right, than the Vernin Vinge Singularity may in reality be withing just a few years from today. 

But, to put an exact date on anything is probably erronious, either too far into the future, or at the end of this decade. 

 

I think a more realistic approach to this is to say something like,

"2030: The Confusing, Thrilling, Frustrating Ambivalence"

Since we are living in the future dreamed about in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, take a look around--it's nothing like they thought it would be, right?

• Spaceflight didn't turn into the big deal they thought it would be.
• The global population didn't rocket like some thought it would.
• The population didn't plummet either.
• We didn't starve ourselves to death.
• We didn't have a nuclear war.
• But nuclear proliferation has spread further that some thought it would.
• Solar energy still isn't as cheap as some would have liked back then.
• But nuclear power never became too cheap to meter either.
• And a bunch of totally unexpected stuff happened. The fall of the Soviet Union. The Internet. Spam.

Here we are in the presence of the future dreamed about years ago and it's nothing, nothing like they thought it would be. The optimists and pessimists were both wrong. They'll continue to both be wrong forever.

Somethings really are measurably better. The developing world is improving faster than some thought it would. But this forces us to confront a lot of issues no-one could have imagined then.

Welcome to the ambivalent present. The contradictory present. The surprising and frustrating present. The wonderful present. The horrifying present. All inextricably intermingled in one crazy, thrilling, wonderous, depressing mess.

This is how the future arrives. The good mixed with the bad and always, always, always surprising. 

 

The “shift happens” video, is a great piece of work. I also googled about the shift happens video and learned that the powerpoint presentation was displayed at a national association of educators conference. The one fact in the video that surprised me the most was was the was the prediction that information will double every 72 hours, or every three days in 2010.

I was in high school in the mid to late 1980's when I first heard about the singularity. Before spiritual machines or the singularity is near, or the book “Faster”, the spike, to name a few. The singularity trend was known even in the 1980's. How fast we evolve in the next 30 years is the real question to ask, and everyone alive today can only make guesses and educated guesses to where we will be in 2020, 2040, 2050 or 2060.

Educators have a problem, the class of 2020 just entered into kindergarten this year. They will be graduating in 13 years. Some students will spend an additional 5 to 8 years to get an advanced degree.

Ray K pointed out a very interesting trend in manufacturing. Technology and automation are eliminating jobs in favor of reduced labor costs. Factories that needed 130 workers, after automation only employed 12. AGI and NLP technologies will increase the "no jobs" economy.

Educators have to educate kids so they can get enough of an education so they can function in society. Compounding this problem is the rate that information obsolesces, or becomes inaccurate, wrong, misleading or proven scientifically to be false is increasing. The next 15 to 20 years will be radically different than today, and be prepared. If we have desktop machines that can do the work of any scientist or nba or college student, we will see millions of jobs eliminated.

In the book age of spiritual machines, Ray K predicted that the brain would be understood and reverse engineered by 2099. Ray K argued that the rate of change is speeding up. If your in your 30's today, you have a chance to make it to your 85^th or 86^th birthday, You still have 30 more years of work, and estimated another 20 years of retirement before death. Do not blame the messenger that you do not like the singularity message, that radical change is possible, that radical change is occurring and will intensify within your lifetime.

The quality of your 85^th birthday may be radically different from our concept of what it is to be 85. In 50 years the level of understanding may allow for radical life extension. IF we can break the 120 year lifespan, our technology will radically change our future adult lives.

We need more research, and different computer structures that better mimic how information is processed in the brain. The 80 core chip from intel is just the start. When we have machines that can perform intellectual tasks, understand natural language, and use 3d graphics to model real and fictional worlds, then we will have machines that will do for science and technology, what fire did to primitive man.

  My guess is NLP and AGI will have to be etched in silicon and become hardware based once we get the technology working.

What we do not have at this writing in 2007 is functional AGI, and AGI on every desktop. The question that nobody can answer is where science will be in 20 to 50 years. If we can create in-body repair systems and strong AI that can think as well as compute, then we will be one step closer to the singularity. How many machines in 2020 can do the work of a single educated person is a worthwhile guess. If we do get NLP computers and AGI on every desktop, machines may do the bulk of our analytical thinking, synthesis and verification.

I still have another 30 years till retirement, and up to another 40 to 50 years of life left. (It could end tommarow, but based on my grandparents who lived to 80's and 90's, I think I have a little time left.) So life at 2020 is relevent, and even more revent if your in your teens or 20's. In 2027, you will be in your 30's and 40's.  

 

A great many jobs are eliminated as time goes on, but many are created.

If this 72 hours technical knowledge doubling rate actually begins near 2010 (or later, earlier) than new fields will come into existance, perhaps faster than old ones decline.

One idea of technology is that when a new platform comes into existance, it is the foundation for 5 or 7 or more new ones, and than so on and so on. It is concievable that new enterprises and fields that are not even possible today will come into existance, and therefore create a demand for more commerce, perhaps much of it not even material in orientation.

The industrial revolution eliminated many human and animal agricultural tasks, yet created new enterprises.

Oh, of course, if the new jobs created are less than those eliminated, well maybe we just need to use this new information/super industrial revolution to create a revolutionary new economic system.  

Or, maybe ask the question as to should people serve the system, or should the system serve the people?

Also, maybe a desktop computer that is as powerful as a human mind isn't really needed, if the Internet evolves toward "cloud computing", written about in Wired magazine.

Perhaps, a few super-cooled D-Wave quantum computers with more computing power than all the brains in a google of google of universes all accessable by desk top terminals, perhaps just really good classical computers that are hooked up to the quantum computers.

Oh, BTW, I made a mistake in my 72 hr doubling calculations. When I state 121.75, that was really 2 to the power of 121.75 which would only be 10 to the power of 36.65 (4.43 e 36). But, still pretty impressive, especially if one figures that the exponent of the exponent will increase and in all probability, only a few months after the 72 hr doubling period( if even valid) we will accelerate to a doubling period of every few hours, than minutes, than seconds, than...??..which, I guess would be the Singularity.

I am very curious to see how things work out in the personal lives of Transhumanists should the Singularity not happen as hoped by the year 2030.  By that year many of the "older folks" among us will have used the only option available for a possible escape from death, which would be cryonic suspension.  While Ray Kurzweil came to his 2030 date for the Singularity by using Moore's law, I'm sure he (and many others) found it comforting that this was a year within striking distance of his personal lifespan.  Around 2030 I envision many documentaries and news specials being made to cover the "depressed and misguided souls (I see this being the angle given by the filmmakers)" who thought a Singularity would happen within their lifetime.  But by then cryonic suspension technology should be far more advanced than now and I can also imagine the "Transhumanist Elders" being much beloved by the younger generation (I would at least hope so!, lol).

John     

I'm not convinced that anyone should be counting on the Singularity. We work, play, love, fight and generally live the best we can -- and that's where meaning comes from. Anybody who thinks the Singularity is a big toy that'll solve all their problems and make them happy forever deserves their disappointment.

For the most part great change happens in the background while we get on with everything else. I think that amazing things are afoot, and I hope to see and participate in them, but even if the world stays pretty much the same throughout my life, I think I'll be happy. Old and eventually dead, but happy :)

May not need a "Singularity" to arrive in order to have greatly expanded lifespans.

Just even now "gene doping" can increase strength and eliminate the need for Viagra, but it is still a bit new.

10 years from now, gene doping for the brain, heart, liver, ect. may be here, and nano-technology is already starting to take off.

All we need is for a moderate acceleration of the above technologies to save a large fraction of those who are 60 now, to make a transition to age 90 more tolerable than it is today. That is 30 years from now, and if there is no singularty, than at least age 90 can make it to 100 in better shape that 70 is now, and so on. Nothing super revolutionary, just incremental.

 

Perhaps 15 years from now, healthy life extension will be pushing the limits about 1 year for every 1 year that the calender registers, and by 2025 about 1 1/2 years, than by 2040 or so about 2 years.

 

It isn't really about the Singularity or bust.  

 

 

A singularity should very well be a traumatic thing. I prefer it did happen rather not not, because even if it would kill all humans, it certainly should be an improvement. That is a very cynical think to say, I know, but I cant look at it any other way.

I dont like dying one bit, and neither do I fancy growing old and frail (and then dying). Most people agree.

But I am pretty much sure I will have a good deal of fun with existing in the next decades, even if I have to look forward to aging and death and bad bowel movements. Whatever is going to happen, things are looking up to become very spicy indeed.

But if a singularity of some sort does happen, I will exert my full superhuman powers, radiating beams of molten lava from mine eyes and mock AdBatstone for subjective aeons. And if he is right, and transhumanists are just a bunch of whacky raellians, and, consequently I die, he is free to put a big bright orange LOSER graffity tag on my grave.


 

 

Singularity is hardly critical for Transhumanism (it is critical for singularitarianism). You can have biological immortality and uploads without singularity. However those things might start a singularity of some form, be it Vinges, Kurtzweils or Lems (little known, Lems singularity is generally a matter of an individual, not of a civilisation).