Ray Kurzweil argues that the 2045 singularity will allow artificial brain and organ technologies to dramatically extend human lifespans. But we need to consider the social and economic implications.
Google engineer Ray Kurzweil believes that building an artificial brain could lead to the creation of a human mind. He claims that the human brain will be able to be accurately mimicked by 2045. The idea behind this radical belief is the “singularity” in 2045. In mathematics, a singularity is a point on an asymptote. A steeply increasing function gets infinitely close to the asymptote while simultaneously increasing toward infinity. The point where the asymptote is located is the singularity, where the function has infinite values. It’s easy to understand singularities by imagining a black hole, a singularity in space. A black hole is like an infinitely deep well, and stars and light fall into its infinitely deep well. Kurzweil demonstrates with data that humanity’s nanotechnology and information technology grows exponentially according to the law of accelerating returns. He says that when technology grows exponentially and reaches the singularity, humans will be able to control matter at the molecular level. Humans will gain alchemist-like abilities to create artificial brains and organs. The challenge of creating artificial brains is overcoming the limitations of human lifespan.
The limits of human lifespan have been studied scientifically many times, and it turns out that there is a substance involved. In 1961, Hayflick discovered the limit of the number of divisions of human body cells and estimated the limit of human lifespan to be 120 years, given that the average lifespan of a human body cell is two years. After Hayflick’s discovery, telomeres were discovered in human DNA. As our cells divide, our telomeres shorten, and when they are lost, our genetic information begins to disappear. When the brain, which contains our individual identity, reaches the end of its limited division, we die. Kurzweil believes that by 2045, when the singularity hits, artificial brains could be created to extend life. Along with artificial brains, the development of artificial organs and highly advanced medical technology could increase human lifespans by several orders of magnitude. He is known to take hundreds of nutritional pills to survive until 2045, when the singularity comes.
Let’s imagine the future society after the singularity that Kurzweil is waiting for. In the future, technology will be advanced enough to make virtual reality indistinguishable from the real world. And, as predicted by Kurzweil, artificial intelligence will develop and become a billion times more intelligent than humans. Humans can indirectly acquire a billion times more intelligence by connecting to the AI cloud. Highly developed artificial intelligence creates “superintelligence” that does not have a special purpose and framework similar to humans. In a superintelligent society, strong AI created by technology and hybrid humans connected to AI will emerge. While Kurzweil sees infinite life extension as a blessing for all individuals, in a superintelligent society, infinite life will be a hindrance to humanity. Let’s take a look at some of the scenarios in which human immortality in a superintelligent society would be detrimental. We will show why limits on artificial life extension are necessary to avoid the inevitable negative effects that cannot be ignored.
In order to extend life after the singularity, we will need to replace the artificial brain and its appendages. When the technology is first introduced, artificial brains will be in high demand. Immediately after the singularity is reached, the high demand will make life extension very expensive. Developers like Kurzweil and those who can afford it will benefit from the technology. The temptation is to monopolize the unprecedented privilege of life extension once a few people start to take advantage of it. In the worst case scenario, a vicious cycle is set in motion where the gap between the long-lived privileged and the short-lived underclass widens. The wealthy have the opportunity to extend their lifespan, live longer, and accumulate wealth. They are given more opportunities to accumulate more wealth and live longer. This increased longevity gives them the opportunity to accumulate more wealth. This vicious cycle accelerates class segregation, and the segregated classes become entrenched. The counterargument here is that the rapid technological progress of the singularity will solve the problem if life-extending technologies become widely available. In the long run, if life extension technologies become cheap, everyone will live longer. However, universal lifespan extension creates a new problem.
Let’s first look at the micro-level problem of extending the lifespan of the majority of humanity. If life extension becomes widespread, many people may be unprepared for it. In the future, people will still have jobs and retire when they reach a certain age. There is only a finite amount of retirement savings that can be built up to reach retirement age. If lifespans are simply doubled, we need to fund the extra years of life. For many, a sudden extension of life creates longevity risk, which is a financial crisis. With insufficient funds, the quality of an individual’s life is bound to drop several fold. The individual at risk has to choose between living a long, low-quality life or dying. One could argue that the problem is solved in the long run by changing the age of retirement in society. Because everyone expects to live twice as long and is physically able to work well into old age, society may delay retirement. However, only those who can avoid retirement right away will solve the problem. This leaves a surplus of experienced and healthy people who can’t find a job. The new generation will be much less experienced and healthier than those already in the workforce. As a result, the new generation will be less competitive in the labor market and there will be an extreme shortage of jobs. As a result, the old generation will live longer, lower-quality lives, and the new generation will be unable to find their place.
Let’s take a look at the macro problem of increasing life expectancy for everyone. If the majority of humanity lives longer, the population will naturally increase. If we look back at human history, we can see that the increase in human lifespan since the Industrial Revolution has led to an increase in population. After the Industrial Revolution, life expectancy began to double from 20 years old, and 130 years later, the population went from 1 billion to 2 billion. So artificially multiplying life expectancy by several times will cause explosive population growth. If resources cannot support the population due to explosive population growth, there are two ways to balance the two. There are two ways to balance the two: more resources or fewer people. Unfortunately, the material resources on Earth are finite. A significant number of people will have to die off. In this situation, some people will live forever, and others will lose their lives. Deciding who gets to live forever is never a pleasant task. Competition between people to stay alive is triggered, and in severe cases, it can turn into war. One could argue that if a population explosion leads to war, we could just leave Earth and settle on another planet. However, this is physically inconceivable, and the singularity could be as early as 2045. The UN Future Report predicts that human lifespans will double by 2130. The population explosion is expected to happen within 200 years. Unfortunately, the planets that are thought to be rich in water and oxygen gas, which are essential for human life, are more than 200 light-years away. Mars, the nearest planet to Earth, and the planets in our solar system do not have atmospheres to support hundreds of millions of people, nor do they have lakes that hold enough water. It’s physically impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, so it’s impossible to reach a resource-rich planet within 200 years. So, no matter how hard we try, the overpopulation on Earth will have to be solved on Earth.
Since humanity’s efforts to solve the planet’s population explosion threaten humanity, it is necessary to limit life extension first. During the singularity, virtual reality will be indistinguishable from the real world. When humanity runs out of resources, virtual reality can be used to create unlimited resources on Earth. In addition to the minimum resources needed to survive, virtual reality can provide humanity with a surplus of resources. By connecting our brains to virtual reality, we can live in luxury while actually receiving minimal nutrition. But then there’s the issue of values and species preservation. Many people may not be able to accept the idea of living in a fake world with only their brains connected to it. And since it’s not real, they can’t create offspring in virtual reality. You might argue that this is not a problem if you create offspring artificially. However, there is no connection between artificially creating offspring in the real world and people meeting and having offspring in virtual reality. We need to link the creation of offspring to the preservation of the species, but we can’t find the link.
Superintelligence is created and human brains can be connected to AI. AI evolves much faster than humans and is more predictive. Humans are limited in the nutrients they can use for energy to sugars, lipids, and always proteins. AI robots, on the other hand, can survive on electricity and have a diverse diet. In an overpopulated world, humans in their natural state will be at a survival disadvantage because their abilities will lag behind those of AI robots and hybrid humans. Humans will be under pressure from AI to survive. As a result, the majority of humans will turn into hybrid humans for favorable conditions. In the long run, due to life extension, the superintelligent society will consist of only hybrid humans and AI. Humanity as we envision it today will disappear into history. One could argue that hybrid humans will still be human, but they will be different.
Humanity has been searching for eternal life, and each individual has a desire to live longer. At some point in the future, when the singularity becomes a reality, this desire will be fulfilled. However, living eternal life in a society, not just for a single human being, but for many, is a complex and difficult problem. We’ve discussed the negative effects of eternal life on society from various perspectives. In terms of social hierarchy, immortality would lead to different lifespans for different classes. Higher-status humans would have more opportunities to maintain their status if they acquired a longer lifespan. With more opportunities, status is solidified, and the vicious cycle continues. At the micro level of society, this would lead to a deterioration in quality of life and severe competition. Generations that experience a sudden increase in longevity may be unprepared and experience a sharp decline in quality of life. New generations born into the workforce may experience severe job shortages as they compete with older generations. At the macro level of society, we see the problem of population explosion. Population explosion leads to resource scarcity and, in severe cases, war. Virtual reality could be introduced as a solution to the planet’s population explosion, or it could create problems on another level.
The various aspects we have discussed are organically and temporally connected to each other. Life-extending technologies will not be widespread at first and will be concentrated in the hands of a few, creating a privileged class. This is a vicious cycle that exacerbates the problem. When technology advances and life extension becomes affordable for everyone, the first problem is solved. However, if it is suddenly available, the unprepared generation will experience a lower quality of life. The decline in the quality of life of the older generation increases the social burden and affects the new generation. The new generation will face severe job shortages. As time goes on and life expectancy increases, the world’s population explodes. The scarcity of resources will increase, leading to excessive competition and wars. To solve the population problem, humanity could adopt virtual reality. This is a low-cost and low-risk solution. However, it creates a society that is not acceptable to all humans and makes it difficult to preserve the species. Since it is impossible to have offspring in virtual reality, it is impossible to preserve the race in real life. In a superintelligent society, existing humans are at a disadvantage in the population explosion and become artificially intelligent. Eventually, the existing human race will disappear.
Artificial eternal life, coupled with the singularity era, creates one negative problem after another. Even if one problem is solved, another problem will arise that cannot be ignored. If humanity fails to respond appropriately and history moves forward in the chronological order described above, it will be difficult to turn back. Humans need to take action before the problem gets worse. Life extension will be hard to ban because it is human instinct and economically marketable, so we will have to borrow the intelligence of superintelligent societies. We need to know our reality with the intelligence and predictive power of AI, which is a billion times more intelligent than humans. We need to use the power of AI to figure out how long we can accept for everyone. Humanity needs to have an appropriate lifespan to prevent catastrophe. This is how humanity will gain everything in a superintelligent society. We live long lives with superintelligent technology, and we predict and prevent the catastrophes caused by excessive greed. I think this is the best way for humanity.
