Microsoft Word Kurzweil, Ray The Singularity Is Near doc

The Age of 
Intelligent Machines
, I showed how any computer could be constructed from "a suitable number of [a] very 
simple device," namely, the "nor" gate.
75
This is not exactly the same demonstration as a universal Turing 
machine, but it does demonstrate that any computation can be performed by a cascade of this very simple 
device (which is simpler than rule 110), given the right software (which would include the connection 
description of the nor gates).
76
Although we need additional concepts to describe an evolutionary process that create intelligent 
solutions to problems, Wolfram's demonstration of the simplicity an ubiquity of computation is an important 
contribution in our understanding of the fundamental significance of information in the world. 
M
OLLY 
2004:
 
You've got machines evolving at an accelerating pace. What about humans? 
R
AY
:
 
You mean biological humans? 
M
OLLY 
2004:
 
Yes. 
C
HARLES 
D
ARWIN
:
 Biological evolution is presumably continuing, is it not? 
R
AY
:
 
Well, biology at this level is evolving so slowly that it hardly counts. I mentioned that evolution works through 
indirection. It turns out that the older paradigms such as biological evolution do continue but at their old speed, 
so they are eclipsed by the new paradigms. Biological evolution for animals as complex as humans takes tens of 
thousands of years to make noticeable, albeit still small, differences. The entire history of human cultural and 
technological evolution has taken place on that timescale. Yet we are now poised to ascend beyond the fragile 
and slow creations of biological evolution in a mere several decades. Current progress is on a scale that is a 
thousand to a million times faster than biological evolution. 
N
ED 
L
UDD
:
 
What if not everyone wants to go along with this? 
R
AY
:
 
I wouldn't expect they would. There are always early and late adopters. There's always a leading edge and a 
trailing edge to technology or to any evolutionary change. We still have people pushing plows, but that hasn't 
slowed down the adoption of cell phones, telecommunications, the Internet, biotechnology, and so on. However, 
the lagging edge does ultimately catch up. We have societies in Asia that jumped from agrarian economies to 
information economies, without going through industrialization.
77
 
N
ED
:
 That may be so, but the digital divide is getting worse. 
R
AY
:
 
I know that people keep saying that, but how can that possibly be true? The number of humans is growing only 
very slowly. The number of digitally connected humans, no matter how you measure it, is growing rapidly. A 
larger and larger fraction of the world's population is getting electronic communicators and leapfrogging our 
primitive phone-wiring system by hooking up to the Internet wirelessly, so the digital divide is rapidly 
diminishing, not growing. 

---

M
OLLY 
2004:
 
I still feel that the have/have not issue doesn't get enough attention. There's more we can do. 
R
AY
:
 
Indeed, but the overriding, impersonal forces of the law of accelerating returns are nonetheless moving in the 
right direction. Consider that technology in a particular area starts out unaffordable and not working very well. 
Then it becomes merely expensive and works a little better. The next step is the product becomes inexpensive 
and works really well. Finally, the technology becomes virtually free and works great. It wasn't long ago that 
when you saw someone using a portable phone in a movie, he or she was a member of the power elite, because 
only the wealthy could afford portable phones. Or as a more poignant example, consider drugs for AIDS. They 
started out not working very well and costing more than ten thousand dollars per year per patient. Now they 
work a lot better and are down to several hundred dollars per year in poor countries.
78
 Unfortunately with 
regard to AIDS, we're not yet at the working great and costing almost nothing stage. The world is beginning to 
take somewhat more effective action on AIDS, but it has been tragic that more has not been done. Millions of 
lives, most in Africa, have been lost as a result. But the effect of the law of accelerating returns is nonetheless 
moving in the right direction. And the time gap between leading and lagging edge is itself contracting. Right 
now I estimate this lag at about a decade. In a decade, it will be down to about half a decade. 
The Singularity as Economic Imperative
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the 
world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. 
—G
EORGE 
B
ERNARD 
S
HAW
,
"M
AXIMS 
F
OR 
R
EVOLUTIONISTS
",
M
AN AND 
S
UPERMAN
,
1903 
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its 
income. 
—S
AMUEL 
B
UTLER
,
N
OTEBOOKS
,
1912 
If I were just setting out today to make that drive to the West Coast to start a new business, I would 
be looking at biotechnology and nanotechnology. 
—J
EFF 
B
EZOS
,
F
OUNDER AND 
CEO
OF 
A
MAZON
.
COM