We had the chance to give computers less control, and instead we gave them more.
Lately, when I find myself feeling a little too calm about things, I’ve taken to reading the Reddit subreddit r/singularity to help swing my equilibrium back to its natural state of intense panic. This is a place where activity has flourished in recent months, as community members feverishly discuss the day’s ever-increasing developments in artificial intelligence and casually argue about the date they expect computers to officially exceed all human control.
“AGI by the end of 2025” predicted a top ranking post on the subreddit this week, referencing the stage of singularity when “artificial general intelligence” – the point at which computers can perform any intellectual task that a human can – is reached.
Maps. Street directories. The Yellow Pages. Privacy. Look at all the things we lost because, 25 years ago, we chose to save computers instead. A worthwhile exchange? I don’t know, maps were fun to fold. You can’t fold a GPS, you can just yell at its ignorant directions. “But what about the hospitals?” you’re probably saying. “Hospitals need computers.” Yes, I’m sure computers have saved more lives than the cast of, and the result is overpopulation. To paraphrase Paris Hilton, sometimes you just have to leave the party. The people of 1900, aprons splattered in freshly churned butter, understood this.
As you can see, the Y2K bug got an unnecessarily bad rap in 1999. The good news is that we have another chance to get it right in 2038, when at 03:14:08 UTC on 19 January 2038, computer systems running on Unix time will suddenly revert to 20:45:52 on Friday, 13 December 1901. It’s called the
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