AI, The Singularity and the Future of Humanity

Mark Timberlake
Predict
Published in
11 min readJan 17, 2019

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Historically, social progress at scale has been driven by new perspectives and values that underpinned a totally new worldview. Scholars have recognised (since early last century) that this shift in the evolution in our consciousness has been developing for some time.

The historically observable co-evolution of human consciousness and society is the dominant force that shapes the future, despite the disruptive, and colonising narrative that presents technology as the only determinant of future possibility. It is unlikely that AI, Robotics, and Biotechnologies are the results of a new emergent level of human awareness. A new transformative evolution in human consciousness would be a transcendence of worldview, social issues, not more of the same.

The rapid rise, and worrying evangelical narrative of these technologies, together with their apparent accelerating development and deployment, and the growing inventory of adverse social impacts, may further fuel the evolution of human consciousness as it seeks a new level of awareness, and a new social order. A techno-futuristic vision that does not have humanity at the core of its narrative is doomed to fail.

The ‘Singularity’ is a technology vision of the future. Will we just accept the Singularity as our destiny, or will humanity map out its own journey?

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Mark Timberlake
Predict

A quest for insights from subterranean depths. Seeker of ideas, awakenings, alchemy. Thoughts from a troubled star.