#Occupy the #Singularity

[A]s death to the mortal man so failure to the immortal[...]. (Imperial Thought of the Day, Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook 4th ed., p. 226)

Some Singularitarians have publicly jumped to the conclusion that younger Occupy Wall Street protesters have nothing to worry about in the long run. The argument runs like this:

Premise: Mind uploading will eliminate the need for food, water, shelter and medicine. The only necessities of posthuman existence will be data storage, processor hardware, and electricity.
Premise: Moore's Law, combined with a new abundant energy source (fusion? space-solar?), will make all three of these resources abundant and the cost of existence negligible.
Conclusion: Therefore, at the time of the Singularity, planet Earth will have transitioned to a post-scarcity economy without poverty.

I consider the first premise all but proven and the second highly probable, but I don't agree that the conclusion logically follows from them.

Modern technology, obsolete economics

Courtesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies Inc.

Ray Kurzweil claims technology has been steadily narrowing the gap between rich and poor. Richer people still get new technologies first, but poor people are catching up. As proof, he offers us his chart "Mass Use of Inventions". Technological acceleration, Kurzweil tells us, means this trend will continue during the 21st century. When the Singularity finally arrives in 2045, it will finish -- not start -- the world's transition to a post-scarcity economy with no financial inequality. I'd like to agree with him, but I can't, for two reasons.

First, the idea of corporate-made technology as a social leveler amounts to trickle-down economics, a dead theory whose obituary hit the papers earlier this month.

High tech, low budget?

Image via CrunchBase

I used to think I'd always be able to live comfortably and cheaply. I didn't drive, I liked living in a small apartment, and I didn't care about owning such status symbols as a private art or wine collection. All I wanted that'd be a splurge for a student was a computer with the latest and greatest of hardware, which wasn't anywhere near as expensive.

There were also lots of things that weren't on the market yet, but that I'd want when they came out and became practical. A mobile, wearable augmented-reality device. A brain-computer interface and other cyborg enhancements. Utility fog to make shape-shifting clothes and furniture. A self-driving car, preferably a plug-in hybrid. But technological acceleration meant everything I wanted beyond a poverty-line lifestyle would get cheaper and cheaper. I didn't have to worry about pursuing a six-figure salary. Even working-class people would be able to afford the upcoming radical technologies we wanted, so Singularitarian Transhumanists could drop out of the rat race now and the human race later. Right?

The future is expensive: introduction

In late November, a stark revelation hit me: I hadn't made any financial plans past graduation, and I didn't know whether or not pursuing a six-figure salary was worthwhile. Worse, I couldn't make any financial plans with the knowledge at my disposal, because most of the major purchases I'd be making in my lifetime would probably be things that hadn't been invented yet! How does one budget for purely theoretical equipment?

I didn't have much time to research this question with exams and term projects on the horizon. What little preliminary research I could fit into my schedule led to three tentative conclusions:

1. The high-tech lifestyle was cheap, getting cheaper, and would continue to get cheaper.
2. Technology was narrowing the gap between rich and poor.
3. A post-scarcity economy, which the Singularity is likely to produce, will eliminate economic inequality. There will be no digital divide among digital people.

If even one of these assessments was correct, it would have been great news. As long as I was earning enough to live on from paycheck to paycheck, I'd be able to pursue a job I loved, or failing that, one with a decent 40-hour workweek. I wouldn't have to go to the most prestigious graduate school, and could pick one with a research project I liked. And if I did ever get a high salary, I could spend and be merry, because my retirement was safe. I'd do my part to stimulate the economy and keep Moore's Law alive. I might even be able to donate to research foundations and offset my personal carbon footprint.

Unfortunately, now that I've had time to research these three assertions in detail, I'm satisfied that they're probably all wrong. My next three posts will explain why.