Oct 8, 2021 11:10 PM
https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/...-humanity/
EXCERPTS: . . . This is the vision known as the “Singleton Hypothesis”. It comes from the futurist philosopher Nick Bostrom, and it’s the idea that humanity – or in fact any intelligent life on Earth – will eventually live as a “singleton”: a world ruled by a single decision-making entity.
“It is an open question whether the singleton hypothesis is true,” writes Bostrom. “My own opinion is that it is more likely true than not.”
In fact, Bostrom believes, it’s simply the final step on a ladder we’re already climbing. If you look at where humanity started and compare it to where we are now, he says, the Singleton Hypothesis starts to look all but inevitable.
“Historically, we have seen an overarching trend towards the emergence of higher levels of social organization, from hunter-gatherer bands, to chiefdoms, city-states, nation states, and now multinational organizations, regional alliances, various international governance structures, and other aspects of globalization,” he explains. “Extrapolation of this trend points to the creation of a singleton.”
[...] Yes, it’s true that the Singleton Hypothesis might not be a utopian vision – there are plenty of ways it could go wrong. A totalitarian singleton, for instance, would give us a world with “absolutely no freedom, no privacy, no hope of escaping, no agency to control our lives at all,” warned Tucker Davey, a writer at the Future of Life Institute in Massachusetts, which focuses on existential risk research.
“In totalitarian regimes of the past, [there was] so much paranoia and psychological suffering because you just have no idea if you're going to get killed for saying the wrong thing,” he told the BBC. “And now imagine that there's not even a question, every single thing you say is being reported and being analyzed.”
But Bostrom doesn’t think his vision needs to be quite that nightmarish. There are plenty of ways the Singleton Hypothesis could be true that sound quite nice: maybe, with enough time and resources, everybody on the planet would independently adopt the same moral code – then this code would count as a singleton. Maybe the world unites under a global democratic republic, or a “friendly superintelligent machine,” Bostrom suggests – “assuming it was powerful enough that no other entity could threaten its existence or thwart its plans,” of course.
In fact, he suggests, the Singleton Hypothesis might be the only way to avoid a dystopian future. What would be the point in costly and dangerous arms races or devastating nuclear wars, he points out, if the world is united under a single entity? How better to avoid an unequal and wasteful distribution of resources, or the exponential growth of the population, than an all-knowing benevolent supercomputer?
[...] “Some anticipated technologies might facilitate the creation of a singleton,” he writes, “such as improved surveillance (including reliable lie detection) and mind-control technologies, communication technologies, and artificial intelligence.”
That may sound firmly in the realm of science fiction at the moment, but it’s closer to reality than you might think. We’re already pretty fine with the idea of being constantly surveilled, and as for mind control – well, we’re almost there... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: . . . This is the vision known as the “Singleton Hypothesis”. It comes from the futurist philosopher Nick Bostrom, and it’s the idea that humanity – or in fact any intelligent life on Earth – will eventually live as a “singleton”: a world ruled by a single decision-making entity.
“It is an open question whether the singleton hypothesis is true,” writes Bostrom. “My own opinion is that it is more likely true than not.”
In fact, Bostrom believes, it’s simply the final step on a ladder we’re already climbing. If you look at where humanity started and compare it to where we are now, he says, the Singleton Hypothesis starts to look all but inevitable.
“Historically, we have seen an overarching trend towards the emergence of higher levels of social organization, from hunter-gatherer bands, to chiefdoms, city-states, nation states, and now multinational organizations, regional alliances, various international governance structures, and other aspects of globalization,” he explains. “Extrapolation of this trend points to the creation of a singleton.”
[...] Yes, it’s true that the Singleton Hypothesis might not be a utopian vision – there are plenty of ways it could go wrong. A totalitarian singleton, for instance, would give us a world with “absolutely no freedom, no privacy, no hope of escaping, no agency to control our lives at all,” warned Tucker Davey, a writer at the Future of Life Institute in Massachusetts, which focuses on existential risk research.
“In totalitarian regimes of the past, [there was] so much paranoia and psychological suffering because you just have no idea if you're going to get killed for saying the wrong thing,” he told the BBC. “And now imagine that there's not even a question, every single thing you say is being reported and being analyzed.”
But Bostrom doesn’t think his vision needs to be quite that nightmarish. There are plenty of ways the Singleton Hypothesis could be true that sound quite nice: maybe, with enough time and resources, everybody on the planet would independently adopt the same moral code – then this code would count as a singleton. Maybe the world unites under a global democratic republic, or a “friendly superintelligent machine,” Bostrom suggests – “assuming it was powerful enough that no other entity could threaten its existence or thwart its plans,” of course.
In fact, he suggests, the Singleton Hypothesis might be the only way to avoid a dystopian future. What would be the point in costly and dangerous arms races or devastating nuclear wars, he points out, if the world is united under a single entity? How better to avoid an unequal and wasteful distribution of resources, or the exponential growth of the population, than an all-knowing benevolent supercomputer?
[...] “Some anticipated technologies might facilitate the creation of a singleton,” he writes, “such as improved surveillance (including reliable lie detection) and mind-control technologies, communication technologies, and artificial intelligence.”
That may sound firmly in the realm of science fiction at the moment, but it’s closer to reality than you might think. We’re already pretty fine with the idea of being constantly surveilled, and as for mind control – well, we’re almost there... (MORE - missing details)
