"The Brave New Singularity"

This article on singularity is not only surprising, but it is also disturbing. To think that humans will no longer age and computers will be the smartest thing on earth sounds preposterous. According to Kurzweil, however, it is definitely coming - and in 2045. The article says, “If computers are getting so much faster, so incredibly fast, there might conceivably come a moment when they are capable of something comparable to human intelligence.” The things this statement implies seem inconceivable, but alarmingly POSSIBLE. I definitely believe that merging with machines and cheating death will take away our humanity. If a computer could be as intelligent as a human could, then we would practically be the same, except for a few things. We get sick, we die, we have feelings, we can wonder, we have imagination - these qualities are what make us human. By taking these things away and merging with machines, or “perfecting” our existence, we would become essentially machines as well. These ideas make Brave New World even more terrifying. While reading this novel, the things people say and do sound stupid and funny, but if the things Kurzweil say are true, then the novel is more of a possible and horrific telling of the future. Although Bernard is considered insane in the novel, he seems to be the only sane one to the reader. His want to be “free and happy in some other way… in [his] own way; not in everybody else’s way” sounds odd to a reader now days, but in 1245, it might not be so outlandish (Huxley 91). Although it may never be possible to be completely free of the influences of society like Bernard wants, the people in the Brave New World have a lot of room to move in that direction; and the idea of singularity is definitely a step in the wrong direction. The supposed coming of singularity has the threat of taking away our humanity, turning each of us into just another “cell in the social body,” and achieving a perfection that one could only describe as imperfect (Huxley 90).