Tezos

Please Stand By -I Got Something To Say 115

Creator

tz1VCtzuZHriPNays8UJnAdrZDgRaPehud2Y

Description

Please Stand By utilizes the iconic SMPTE color bars template and changes the palette to bring into question viewers perceptions surrounding "standards of color." An offshoot of my original series, I Got Something To Say, adds an additional more literal message. Please Stand By, The Singularity Is Near. The Singularity, as defined by Ray Kurzweil in his book The Singularity is Near, is “a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, it’s impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed.” At this point technology will transcend the limits of biology to a point that death will become nothing more than a problem that has been solved. Some scientists believe this point to be far off into the future while Kurzweil is of the mindset that we are way closer than most expect. Most of his models of technological advancement are based on his theory that this advancement is exponential in growth and therefore expanding at a much faster rate than most predictive models currently account for. As we as a society continue to merge our human intelligence with artificial intelligence, crisis’s that we currently see as world ending will be solved in minutes, humans will be able to “remember billions of facts precisely and recall them instantly… be able to share their knowledge at extremely high speeds…(and) be able to download skills and knowledge from other machines, eventually also from humans.” But as humans move away from biological to machine bodies what will be the consequence. As someone who hopes to live to see us hit the singularity for completely selfish reasons, the consequences are something I rarely thought about until recently. Obviously there will be the issue of overpopulation, once aging has been cured, as well as class divides among the rich and poor becoming even vastly more substantial than they already are. But more importantly how much humanity will be lost at the expense of merging ourselves with machines. Cultures that revolve around oral storytelling will be eradicated. Religions will likely crumble as our knowledge becomes so infinite that it dispels any need for what will likely be seen as crutches, languages will become irrelevant as everyone will have access to every language simultaneously. It forces us to ask the question “what exactly makes us human?” And while I largely agree with most futurists and authors such as Kurzweil at the optimistic view of the future I have found myself increasingly wondering if it will all be worth it.