1) Singularity is interesting because it changes what it means to be human. The idea of "machines enslaving us" suggests that people are thinking like movie plots: machines become "human-like" amid confused humans doomed as common everymen. What's more likely is that the modern human will become obsolete in the same way that the hunter-gather human has and the agrarian human is. Machines don't "enslave" us, they _become_ us.
2) How long until irresponsible birth is as egregious as irresponsible death?
It describes the coming of age of a member of the last generation of humanity in a post-singularity society where a reputational economy has drastically decreased the birthrate.
Most people focus on the technological singularity, the development of strong AI.
I think the more likely singularity is biological singularity, when individual human consciousnesses become immortal. A single human thinking about a problem for 10 million years should be able so solve pretty much anything. It gets easier if we can copy and accelerate ourselves. Hopefully infinite is enough time to figure out the fourth dimension or black holes. Then we get to go to the next level and figure out our next problem.
"I think the more likely singularity is biological singularity, when individual human consciousnesses become immortal."
OK, why? Seems like we'd at least be able to get Strong AI by the crappy brute force way by reverse engineering a human brain before that. Your crappily reverse engineered human brain could then be used to design a proper Strong AI, and we're back to Strong AI being the key ingredient for a Singularity.
Why is it that you think developing a Strong AI is less likely than us being able to copy, accelerate, and immortalize a human brain?
"A single human thinking about a problem for 10 million years should be able so solve pretty much anything."
What's the justification for this claim? Last I checked, humans brains have finite capacity and cannot recursively self-improve (in the sense of modifying their architecture and structure).
Alright, I can't defend what I wrote because I wrote it while somewhat inebriated and these things are never as coherent the next morning... maybe I should avoid trolling on news.yc in such states, it's gotten me into trouble before. :)
I have absolutely no justification for why Strong AI is less likely than immortality. I think it's wishful thinking on my part because I have a paranoid fear that a strong AI would freeze humanity at its current level of evolution. In other words, I think a far future society with infinitely intelligent humans is much more desirable than a far future society with dumb humans governed by a God-like AI.
The most likely path to immortality that I see is allowing consciousness uploads. I think reverse engineering a brain would give us the knowledge to accomplish such a task. Perhaps there will be some way to merge instead of upload so that we can maintain our ego/self, but either way, it's a kind of immortality. From a digitized human consciousness, Strong AI should come pretty quickly, as the digitized human or outsiders can start modifying the architecture and structure of copies of uploaded consciousnesses. In this scenario, the technological and biological singularities happen at the same time. Which I guess means that the technological and biological singularities happen together.
2) How long until irresponsible birth is as egregious as irresponsible death?