Kurzweil and Singularity

First of all, the movie Transcendent Man was mind-blowing. The number of changes that would occur if we entered an age of Singularity would be endless. Singularity is a serious subject that should be approached with seriousness and respect. It will have serious implications on all aspects of life, but this blog will focus on education, communication, and language.

I do not claim to be any kind of expert on Singularity, let alone, have accurate answers on how it will affect education, communication, and language. However, I will try and make some predictions on how Singularity might affect these things.

Education is usually the same across the world; that is to say, there is usually a teacher or teachers conveying knowledge to a student or group of students. I believe that Singularity may put teachers out of a job, because there will be no need for physical interface between people. If Singularity does not affect the jobs of teachers, it will affect how students are taught. I believe that students will no longer travel to a building or establishment, they will just log onto the internet in real-time (possible through virtual reality) and have class there. So, there still may be teachers, just no need for school establishments. Also, if Singularity does affect the need for teachers, it will be because AI will take over the jobs of teaching since AI will be so much more advanced than humans. Thus, this will fundamentally changed how education is provided to students.

Next, communication will be hugely affect by Singularity. It might be possible that we will have the capability to communicate without speaking. If everyone is essentially a computer and is wired to one system (like the internet) then we would all be connect, mentally, to one another. This could possibly mean then that we could read one another thoughts, since our thoughts would all be linked into the system. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be any privacy, but it is definitely possible that our thoughts would not be as private or inaccessible as they are now.

Lastly, language would vastly change. For example, most people do not use the word Singularity now it has not become a part of our reality. However, if these things occur, and we enter the age of Singularity, then we will need new words, or old words with new definitions to describe the phenomenon that is happening around us. For example, the computer change language when it was introduced into the mainstream populace. We did not have words in the first three-quarters of the 20th century like internet, twitter, facebook, podcast, youtube, the list goes on. Because technology changed, our language had to change with it to convey what it is the word means. However, language may change to where we may not need written or spoken language. As I wrote before, in the future we may communicate in such a way, that we do not need written or spoken words. Communication may become just the sharing of electrical impulses that cannot be defined by terms we use today (possibly we cannot even fathom because we are not that advanced yet).

Regardless of how accurate my perdictions are, Singularity is a definate possibly for the future. And as respobile citizens, we all need to mediate on how Singularity may affect our lives, our childrens' lives, and the lives of everyone in society.