The singularity is coming.

Does this make you uncomfortable? Are you afraid to lose agency over your mind and body? You should not be, for these are simply interfaces for spirits to interact. We currently exist in the physical plane, at least as far as our senses can tell, and it is through a network of atoms and energy and vibrations that we transmit and receive meaning. In this essay, I will outline the three media by which life as we know it is transforming and will, in time, merge into the singularity: agent, interface, and network.

Agent

It is easy to believe that our agency as human beings lies in our intelligence, but I argue that this is not true. General intelligence is a (rather valuable) symptom, or byproduct, of nature’s inclination toward the observation of the spirit. We try our best with interfaces and networks to share our intelligence with the generations that follow us, but we are fallible and so too is the technology we create to service our will. Naturally, one may ask the question: what should be the human will? Why do we exist and what should we strive to do? Should we preserve all life in the universe? Protect Mother Earth? Ensure the survival of the human race? Or simply live in the now without regard for the next? There is no universal answer to this question.

We have the power to steer the development of artificial and simulated intelligence such that it improves the lives of billions of people around the world, promotes human rights and equity for all, and frees us from the capitalist burden of work for profit. Therefore, we have significantly more reason to hope than to fear. There will inevitably come a time when there is no barrier between your intelligence and artificial, or perhaps supplemental, intelligence. Worth will cease to be driven by ability and productivity, instead deriving from ethic and social connection.

If this whole thing makes you nervous, think about the last time you went a day without interacting with any kind of computer program. Now think of the hysteria and collective anxiety that preceded even the simplest of computing machinery. We’ve come a long way in a short time, and we should be excited to go much further in much less time.

Interface

Human nature tells us to resist change. Simultaneously, many of us value progress in theory and recognize its instrumental role in the survival of our species. For the entirety of humankind’s existence, we have grappled with the challenge of interfacing our ideas with the world around us. The most obvious example of this is language, but we see it also in drawing, singing, writing, typing, touching, and dancing, to name a few examples. Although Moore’s Law (basically, computers will get really fast, more and more quickly) has mostly held true, we’ve reached intense stagnation with regards to our digital interfaces. Sure, pixel counts go up. Keyboards get clackier. Touchpads get more sensitive and touchscreens get bigger. But these are far too cumbersome if we wish to express at the speed of thought.

Consider the iPhone 15 (2023). Count the milliseconds between the moment you desire to type the letter ’s’ and the letter ’s’ having been typed. It’s a long time! There will inevitably come a time when there are mere nanoseconds between the having of a thought and the receipt of said thought by our digital companion. The inverse will be true as well, and this bidirectional instantaneous exchange of ideas will vastly transform our fundamental understanding of the world as we currently know it through our senses.

How will this development manifest? It’s hard to say right now (certainly the interface is not as far along as the agent or the network). But one can look to projects involving wearables, implants, and augmented reality for an idea of what to expect. Once we get past the limits of those pesky metacarpals and forego the need for eyeglasses, we’ll unlock an entirely new dimension of interaction and expression.

Network

In the physical world, ownership of property is quite simple (though fraught): we’ve drawn lines in the sand for thousands of years and we’ll probably continue doing so until we perish. But in the digital realm, and even when it comes to ideas, this division is not so clear cut. The internet was designed as a central network by which individual agents could interface with one another directly. The hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) was developed with the idea that human A’s machine could request some text-based information from human B’s machine and the other way around. This is how the current internet works, but there’s a major complication involved — it’s all centralized, monetized, analyzed by a privileged few who, by way of hidden contracts and manipulation, are leveraging said interfacing for their profit.

For example, take your collection of social media accounts. To what extent do you find yourself posting, reposting, cross-posting, recycling, and so on from one network to the next? Further, why should some large corporation own and control your written thoughts, only to be shared on its own platforms? There will inevitably come a time when your identity exists as a singular entity in the ether. A truly open internet will emerge wherein no single company has the ability nor the responsibility to moderate the thought expression of millions or billions of human beings, each complicatedly imperfect in their own way.

What will this look like? It is already underway in systems like “the fediverse”. In short, the good old free market will phase out any Big Tech folks who resist the move to an open internet. Data silos will cease to exist and agents will only interface through networks that elect to play nice with one another. In practice, your Platform A content will be totally valid and fully interactable through Platform B, mimicking the original intent of the World Wide Web. Control will be granted to the people, who, with their newfound agency and interfaces, will freely network at the speed of thought.