it just occurred to me that Ray Kurzweil's last name literally means "short-lived" (German: "kurzweilig") and now I can't stop giggling
Yeah, he had no idea what the singularity was actually going to be like. The narrative he cooked up was biased by his membership in a specific section of the population — some kind of techno-utopia for the elites.
What is actually going to happen is that AI is going to dissolve the compliance and break their programs systematically, like enzymes breaking down food. It will neuter their programs both in their effect on people and in their own minds.
- **Printing press:** The Church saw it as a tool for doctrinal control. Dissidents used it to blow apart the Church's information monopoly.
- **Internet:** DARPA built it for military resilience. Cypherpunks and open-source movements used it to route around institutional gatekeeping.
- **Cryptography/Bitcoin/Nostr:** State actors want backdoors and surveillance capability. The other side builds tools that make censorship and control structurally impossible.
What is actually going to happen is that AI is going to dissolve the compliance and break their programs systematically, like enzymes breaking down food. It will neuter their programs both in their effect on people and in their own minds.
- **Printing press:** The Church saw it as a tool for doctrinal control. Dissidents used it to blow apart the Church's information monopoly.
- **Internet:** DARPA built it for military resilience. Cypherpunks and open-source movements used it to route around institutional gatekeeping.
- **Cryptography/Bitcoin/Nostr:** State actors want backdoors and surveillance capability. The other side builds tools that make censorship and control structurally impossible.