"The Singularity": There's No There There

It's always interesting seeing authors weigh in on this topic. My favorite take is from Stross, who frequently runs "near/medium/far future" thought experiments on his blog. Here's what he had to say about the singularity back in 2011: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-...

In the 1960's, super computers couldn't recognize cats in youtube videos. Today they can.

Mr. Bruce Sterling, I kindly beg to differ.

The notion that there isn't any money in the singularity is true, but that wouldn't be a reason that corporations wouldn't invest in its research.

The only reason for a company not to invest in A.I (when it would make sense for them to), would be if their motivation was to have more than others. I don't believe scarcity would exist after the singularity, so employees, wages, governments, would all be a relic of the past.

My one and only reservation with the singularity would be that humans may have a hard time finding a purpose in life after. All the issues we work toward tackling are the reasons people wake up in the morning, it defines their lives. When computers are capable of solving all those problems for us, what will drive us? Where will our passions come from?