Singularity Institute

James Miller discusses how the public will react when it starts to believe in the Singularity and about what will cause people to accept the Singularity.

Singularity Institute: How will society change when the Singularity is near?

James Miller: When people start to expect the singularity, their behavior is going to radically change. The scientists are talking about what happens when we get the singularity. I want to sort of push that closer to the present and talk about what happens when people think we're going to get the singularity. That's a lot closer, and I think that it's going to be easier to convince people to care about that because they're not just going to say, "Oh, in 30 or 40 years." They might say, "15 or 20."

SI: What will change when we as a society come to expect the Singularity?

JM: Well, the main one is, we're going to become utterly terrified of death. Because suddenly, when we die, we don't lose out on 30, 40, or 50 years, we lose out on trillions of years. And, that's going to be huge shift in human behavior. Because we're afraid of death, I think we're, maybe, going to sign up for cryonics. We're going to want really safe cars. We're going to want our government to do a much better job protecting us. We might lower speed limits to 10 miles an hour on the roads. Why go 65 miles an hour on a road if you think if you die, you lose out on trillions of year? And, if you think you're going to live a long time, you've got the time to spend going 10 miles an hour!

SI: What's preventing the concept of the singularity from becoming mainstream?

JM: I think it's not clear that machines will ever achieve human-level intelligence. A lot of people who think about the issue think that it will never happen. Once it's apparent that machines will do this, I think most people will accept that the singularity is near.

Another problem is that it's not clear whether we've been able to increase human-level intelligence. There are drugs that I know some of my students take to do better on tests, but the difference isn't quite enough to make a huge change in our economy. My guess is, in 10 years, we'll have much better "smart drugs", and that's going to really supercharge our Gross National Product. And then, when people think we're going to even better and better drugs, they're going to realize, "My God, the future's going to radically change."

SI: What needs to shift in order for the public to believe that there will be a singularity?

JM: I think the key would be if technological opinion leaders think that. If most college professors and scientists think that, they'll tell their students. And, I think a lot of their students will come to accept that there will be a Singularity.

SI: When will the public get behind the idea that there will be a singularity?

JM: I think between 15 and 20 years. At the very least, most college students will think that we'll destroy ourselves or have a singularity by the end of the century.