Singularity And The Future Of Mankind

In the last decade, the pace of technological innovation has accelerated significantly. With the development of artificial intelligence technology, people's eyes are turning from Moore's law to "singularity" conjecture. This concept was first proposed by the gifted scientist von Neumann, referring to the ability to tear apart the structure of human history. In the following many studies, Kurzweil's "singularity approach" theory is the most systematic and has the greatest impact. The author of "singularity approaching" is praised by Bill Gates as "the most authoritative person to predict the future of artificial intelligence".

      Kuzweil's core ideas are: technological innovation is developing exponentially, doubling every ten years; information technology is developing fastest, increasing exponentially, doubling every year; brain science is developing rapidly, and people can understand the activity process and pattern of all brain regions in 20 years; software simulation of human intelligence will be realized in 2020-2030; and machine intelligence will be far beyond nothing Machine assisted human intelligence; nanotechnology can improve human intelligence and life; intelligent machines will have human EQ; human experience is more and more carried out in virtual environment.

Kurzweil's prediction is bold. He thinks that the future civilization is man-machine civilization, and there is no strict boundary between the future computer and human beings. Churchill said, "the longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.". We are Homo sapiens now, and we were apes 10 million years ago, and we learned to use fire a million years ago. In 2045, artificial intelligence will surpass human beings. This is the future Kurzweil pointed out to us. It seems too abstract and unbelievable. There are many examples to let us realize the great power of artificial intelligence: in 1996, a program was run on a 50mips computer in Argonne National Laboratory for five weeks, which solved the puzzle of Boolean algebra conjecture which puzzled mathematicians for 60 years. At present, the developed artificial intelligence program can win the excellent candidates in the college entrance examination.

As a scientific inventor and forecaster, Kurzweil's book has more theoretical depth, and the other book of the same kind is more popular with ordinary readers. "The future is coming" omits the discussion on the scientific basis of technological innovation, and outlines the development path of exponential technology in a more direct and vivid way. It is more vivid and interesting to read. At the beginning of the paper, the author predicts the changes of flying cars and transportation modes, introduces the rapid development of nine exponential technologies and the seven accelerating forces brought about by them. Then, taking eight major industries such as retail, advertising, entertainment, education, health care and food as examples, the author outlines a new business form and social life prospect for us in the coming decades, which is full of imagination and excitement. Coincidentally, one of the authors is the founder and executive chairman of singularity University guided by kuzweil theory.

Of course, the common view of the two books is that human beings have entered an era of exponential development, and the need for flexibility has surpassed the desire for stability. They also did not evade people's concern about the changes in the employment environment brought about by technological innovation. Many occupations will become historical memories. Kurzweil is more optimistic, and the second book makes it clear that the question is whether we have enough time to train the workforce before the impact of technological innovation on technological unemployment expands. Goldman Sachs has studied the employment changes brought about by self driving cars, which will create 300000 new driving jobs a year, but before that, it will take 25 years to complete this transformation. American science and technology has brought about a shortage of employment, which is a manifestation of the shortage of qualified labor force. As of April 2018, there were 6.7 million job vacancies in the United States, and on the other hand, a large number of low skilled workers could not find suitable jobs. In the next 20 or 30 years, we will have to face the impact of this structural change in employment, and we need to take measures such as social assistance and retraining to cushion the impact. The former belongs to charity, while the latter is education and training, especially online education and experiential learning with more advanced VR / AR technologies. In addition, people also need to have stronger learning ability and flexibility to adapt to the new era.

In the future, all enterprises need to transform into digital enterprises. For the manufacturing industry, this can meet the needs of multi variety and small batch manufacturing. Consumers can place orders at any time by connecting with the manufacturer's information pipeline. Manufacturers can complete manufacturing and delivery in the shortest time. Only 3D printing technology can realize the agile production with zero inventory and zero loss. In the medium and long term, the way for China to break through the siege of semiconductor chips is to vigorously explore new paths such as molecular computing, DNA computing, electronic spin computing, quantum computing, optical computing, etc., in the fields of biological science, molecular chemistry, quantum and electronic basic theory applications, and nano materials. These are more basic theoretical research and technical application.

How the government should respond to the requirements of the new era, the small Baltic state of Estonia has set an example for the world: 99% of public services can be completed online, citizens can pay taxes in less than five minutes, and all medical information can be accessed from the database protected by the blockchain. The Estonian government estimates that more than 800 years of government time has been saved by overcoming bureaucracy. The smart city within the scope of digital government and digital social governance are the undertakings that the government can exert its power and should strive to promote from now on.