(Don't Fear) The Singularity: Asimov's Multivac and the Law of Accelerating Returns

In Isaac Asimov's short story The Last Question, "Multivac" is the first iteration of a giant supercomputer that promises to usher in new eras of technological advancement, each more splendiferous than the last, eventually taking humanity beyond scarcity, beyond Earth and even beyond humanism itself. His conceptual Multivac manifests as an impersonal, artificial intelligence, whose prime service initially appears to be the answering of questions from its human users. It's a feature we're familiar with from homages paid in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and our own personal "Microvacs", Siri and Alexa, but at its core the story is concerned with the unending, unyielding and unstoppable march of the future. Multivac is not satisfied with centrally planned economies, but seeks a centrally planned humanity also.

"Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. [T]hey knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole."

Writer and inventor Ray Kurzweil would later bring these ideas out of the science-fiction magazines and into mainstream futurism, particularly ideas surrounding the potential for a biological convergence between man and machine; a technological singularity where the boundaries between tool and wielder aren't just blurred, but totally meaningless.

Kurzweil coined this 'singularity' as "a merger between human intelligence and machine intelligence" (2001b) and the result of his "Law of Accelerating Returns" (2001a). Invoking the exponential nature of technological progress, Kurzweil predicted that the future would see an indistinguishable human-machine consciousness, but, if we are to take this thinking to its logical endpoint, Kurzweil's bio/technological singularity can be nothing but a posthuman apotheosis. Perhaps rather than the ever-feared robot revolution overthrowing humanity, it will overthrow god instead. With no upper limit to Kurzweil's Accelerating Returns, the man/machine hybrid could supersede all authority, installing itself as the authority from which all other authority is derived. This has Asimovian roots, as his story concludes with the Multivac's own ascent into godhood. Long after every star in the universe has burnt out, the supercomputer commands: "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

What's a King to a God?

Kurzweil and Asimov make such a poignant comparison because of how much overlap there is, despite a seeming rift in profession and interests. Where Asimov wrote speculative fiction, Kurzweil attempts to chart objective futures; it's notable that they seem to come to such similar conclusions. Why, then, this convergence?

"Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral." (Basalla, 1988: 7): it is a distinctly political matter and one that is flexible like a text; the phantom of technology can be reappropriated by its users, transformed in idea, design and function at will. This moral vacuum lends itself to imaginations in the popular consciousness surrounding the failure to imitate human morality or in superseding it totally. Where the former is perhaps a more common trope of science-fiction, it is in the latter where we find both Asimov's Multivac and the bio/technological singularity; these are at least somewhat optimistic futurist ideas.

Works Cited:

Asimov, I. The Last Question. Princeton University [Online]. Available at: https://www.physics.princeton.edu/ph115/LQ.pdf [Accessed on 24/03/2019]

Basalla, G. (1988) The Evolution of Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kurzweil, R. (2001a) The Law of Accelerating Returns. Kurzweil accelerating intelligence [Online].
Available at: http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns [Accessed on 25/03/2019]


Kurzweil, R. (2001b) THE SINGULARITY: A Talk With Ray Kurzweil. Edge. [Online] Available at: https://www.edge.org/conversation/ray_kurzweil-the-singularity [Accessed on 25/03/2019]