THE SINGULARITY IS NEARER

American computer scientist, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil is the prophet of transhumanism, the movement that advocates for the possibility, inevitability, and even moral imperative to technologically tinker with the human condition. Kurzweil claims we are about to enter a fifth epoch in the evolution of intelligence: our merging with AI. He believes we are on the verge of transcending our biology and cognition via computers and nano-robots. To describe this transformation, he borrows the ‘singularity’ metaphor from the physics of black holes: as we fall into the abyss of ever-improving computing power, what it means to be human seems about to break down.

In his latest book, The Singularity is Nearer —a sequel to his 2005 book The Singularity is Near— Kurzweil reappraises his predictions and insists that such an event is imminent. His forecasts are based on the law of accelerating returns, in particular, the exponential trend (observable at least since 1939) of the number of computations per second that can be performed per inflation-adjusted dollar. He expects the Turing test to be passed before 2030, when computers will exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from ours and then achieve “superhuman ability” in wide range of areas. The urgency of this book thus comes from the nature of exponential change itself: nearer is a different kind of near.

The scope of Kurzweil’s message is immense, I think, not so much as a grand vision of such an impending “incomprehensible speed and magnitude of transformation”, but rather as a final warning about whether we will conscientiously tame such algorithmic invasion or else fanatically cheer it until the stairway to transhumanist heaven leads humanity into hell. The value of the book lies in articulating such a self-immolating possibility for our species.

To predict the future is difficult indeed. To articulate technocratic fictions is easier, especially when metaphors are taken literally. When juggling basic evolutionary neuroscience with the recent advent of large language models, promissory delusions start pouring like rain: “Computers will be able to simulate human brains in all the ways we might care about within the next two decades or so”, Kurzweil holds. “At last we will have access to our own source code”, he proclaims. Paraphrasing the French philosopher Albert Camus, one must imagine Neo happy.

Kurzweil muddles computation with intelligence and consciousness. He flirts with an ambivalent kind of physicalism whereby consciousness is “much like a fundamental force of the universe”; a self-defeating position because it tries to bridge the gulf between mind and matter that it has set unbridgeable from the outset, exhibiting what the English philosopher Owen Barfield called the ‘residue of unresolved positivism’. Kurzweil then claims that “it is the kind of information-processing complexity found in the brain that “awakens” that force into the kind of subjective experience we recognize”. The words complexity and emergence are too often used interchangeably with ‘abracadabra’.

The futurist imagines a technology capable of replacing each bit of your brain with a digital copy. Surreptitiously, he does not entertain quantum physics, I suspect, because a non-computational approach would upend his paradigm and agenda. He also foretells that nanobots will soon dive into our brains and copy all our memories and personalities. But, would such a “complete computerised replica” still be you? As a functionalist, he believes that doing trumps being. Namely, if a chatbot acts exactly like you, then it is you. The copy supersedes the original. I disagree. Reality is not a simulacrum, nor is consciousness a computer function. Consciousness is foundational and fundamental to existence (Faggin, Irreducible; 2024).

Kurtzweil’s hyperbolic meliorism via technological fetishism does not stop in ‘the cloud’. Information bits alone cannot redeem the physical world: AI needs to team up with nanotechnology. The hype is squared. They believe the soul is digital and the body mechanical. And so the litany of ‘fiction science’ (as I call it) goes on: such revolutions “will enable us to redesign and rebuild—molecule by molecule—our bodies and brains and the worlds with which we interact”. He also believes that diligent people will achieve “longevity escape velocity” by 2030. Will we have reached bullshit escape velocity by then too, I wonder?

Kurzweil’s stance towards death is key to understanding his entire quest. He yearns to bring his father Fredric back to life, quite literally. To preserve a person’s identity, he first plans to gather everything ever written or said in enormous digital records. The next step is to bequeath our virtual replicas with physical bodies, choosing from several robotic avatars as we might please, eventually “grown from the DNA of the original person”, so that one could “continue a relationship with that person, even a physical one, including sex”. If the singularity is near, so is coitus with your counterfeit deceased lovers. This is less parenthetical than it sounds, since Kurzweil strives for a kind of transmuted intercourse between humanity and technology (When We Merge with AI is the subtitle of the book). Or, perhaps, we are becoming “the sex organs of the machine world” (McLuhan, Understanding Media; 1964).

In a most revealing passage, Kurzweil’s existential vulnerability and will-to-power is on full display. One can feel a sense of disappointment, mistrust and even revulsion towards mother nature and her limits. He laments that his brain evolved to predispose him to habits he would rather not have. He bemoans his ageing body, “biologically programmed to eventually destroy the information pattern that is Ray Kurzweil”. But victoriously he believes the singularity will free us all; our lives will not be blemished anymore by our biological frailties!

Kurzweil is convinced that we can copy life, delete death, and edit ourselves. Here we find his gospel of salvation in a nutshell, including the doctrine of liberation from the flesh and the promise of a post-human immortal species. Even his motto is borrowed from the New Testament (“the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17)). However, his techno-redemptive pseudo-religion is expressed in the rhetoric of scientific progress. As the English philosopher John Gray puts it, such “unwitting theologians” engage in “a continuation of monotheism by other means. Hence the unending succession of God-surrogates” (Seven Types of Atheism; 2018).

Every road to utopia meets dystopia halfway. Kurzweil does discuss the main technologies that threaten all of humanity, from nuclear weapons to biotechnology. And yet, paradoxically (and perhaps unsurprisingly), his argues that what creates the problems will take care of them. For instance, he suggests that we can use AI to augment our alignment capabilities with it. Under the spell of technolatry, any objection can be ignored since the cost-benefit analysis is invariably and infallibly positive. Should we blindly embrace any technological change first and articulate the new social contract later (when it is too late)? Progress can give us non-stick frying pans, facilitate human flourishing, but also wipe us out. Indeed, “what makes the transhumanist movement so seductive is that it promises to restore, through science, the transcendent hopes that science itself has obliterated” (O’Gieblyn, God in the Machine; 2017). Rather than shortcutting transcendence via scientific technology, spiritual evolution may be possible by embracing our embodied humanity.

In sum, Kurzweil’s motto is this: Merge thyself—we can, we will, we must! While such a delusional techno-optimism gets out of our hands, heads, and hearts, he confidently reassures us that “nothing is being taken away. There will be a great deal added”. If I may be forgiven, it seems to me that Kurzweil’s understanding of humanity and nature is so bizarrely deficient that his augury is more of a curse than a blessing. His spiritual quest is devoid of spirit. The singularity betrays what is singularly human.