I have been reading about The Singularity lately — the movement that claims, in the words of one of its first proponents, Mathematician Vernor Vinge, that "within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."

Ouch.  Hey, whose side are you on?



There was a piece (tellingly tucked away in the Business section of the Times Friday) profiling the superstars of The Singularity, chief among them Raymond Kurzweil, who, with the wide release of his documentary, Transcendent Man, later this year, is apparently set to become Hollywood's latest superhero, too (sorry, Jake, Prince of Persia isn't gonna cut it). 

Or, maybe he's the Evil Genius. “Once nonbiological intelligence gets a foothold in the human brain," he has said, "the machine intelligence in our brains will grow exponentially..., at least doubling in power each year.  Ultimately, the entire universe will become saturated with our intelligence."

"This," he concludes, "is the destiny of the universe.”

MUAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously, right?

And that's just one prong of The Singularity: super-intelligence.  It seems a no-brainer that exponential growth of intelligence is a good thing, but I'm ambivalent.  There 's a reason we have the expression "too clever by half," y'know.  I mean, how smart is too smart?  I'm sure I'll never know, but you know what?  I don't care.  I don't think I'd want to be exponentially smarter than I am.  I'm not so sure that that would solve any of my problems.  In fact, it might create a lot of problems I'm not smart enough right now to even know I have. 

The other strain of The Singularity kind of grows out of the first.  It seems kind of a waste to get smarter and smarter and then just sort of up and die.  Lucky for us Kurzweil predicts that by 2030 "most people will be able to achieve mental immortality" by "backing up their brains", much as we back up a hard drive.  Another of The Singularity's rising stars, Peter H. Diamandis, is fond of telling audiences: “My target is to live 700 years.”

Of course, if you're that much smarter, you'll need to live that much longer.  I mean, at least 685 years of it will be spent in therapy. Heady, heady stuff we're dealing with here.

Yes, there are a lot of crackpots out there in the immortality game these days, and some of them take "heady" literally.  (I'm thinking specifically of Alcor Life Extension Foundation and Ted Williams here.)  To their credit The Singularitarians are wicked smaht to begin with.  And while Kurzweil's critics detest the quasi-religious undercurrents of the movement, it sorta goes with the territory.  Resurrecting the dead?  All in a day's work for Transcendent Man. 

In fact, Kurzweil fervently hopes to "resurrect" his father, who died when Kurzweil was young, by combining the personal effects of the deceased and his own memories of his dad with his dad's DNA. 

I say let sleeping dogs lie — it sounds like something from Stanislav Lem (in Lem's Solaris, a sentient, and quite possibly sinister, planet studies its human subjects' reactions to memories made flesh in the form of physical human simulacra) — but to each his own. 

I'm ambivalent about living forever, myself.  On the one hand, Kurzweil's quest would end the despotic reign of sexual reproduction, which, you have to admit, while a fun way to pass on the old DNA, misses the mark of literal immortality we're all really shooting for. 

Not to mention sexual reproduction has totally clogged up the planet with Mini-Me's.  Yeah, sure, we talk a good game about "living on in our children and grandchildren," but it's not the same.  They never really know us.  They can't really appreciate us.  And, the truth is, the first sign of inconvenience and they'll ship us off to a nursing home. 

No, personal immortality is the only true immortality.  As the supreme act of egoism I can see why it appeals to people with high IQs. For the rest of us, boredom looms.  Not to mention cannibalism. 

Yeah, you heard me right.  Cannibalism.

I've been reading Don LePan's Animals: A Novel. Set a hundred years in the future, it depicts a world where intelligence literally determines your place in the food chain.  Hey, as long as there's beefcake on the menu. 

I dunno.  IQ is overrated.  Maybe it's the Goldilocks in me, but I think there's something to be said for being just smart enough.  It really all depends on the situation.  People get too smart, they can't be bothered to do the everyday things ordinary people have to do.  And if, for some reason, they have to anyway — which is the problem with everyone being smart — they have a tendency to get a little resentful. And it's ten times worse for everyone when smart people are resentful than when stupid people are.  Trust me.

IQ, like anything, can be overdone. Everybody wants a big one.  Maybe it's a guy thing.  But, let me tell you: it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

I think a compromise is in order.  Ever since discovering Google, I've noticed my IQ jumps about 30 points whenever I'm online.  Every time I log off it's sort of like Awakenings in reverse.  I can see the advantages of having a smartphone, sure (and soon we'll have the option of BCIs), but I've come to happily embrace my offline dullardry.

Who wants to be smart all the time?  I'd rather plug into the Superbrain as needed — you know, when I can't find the number for the nearest take-out restaurant or want to check on movie times — and just enjoy my blissful ignorance the rest of day.

And as for immortality.  Who wants to live forever?  Personally, I'd settle for 350 years.