Exponential ignorance
Contemporary futurists in virtually every field are fond of invoking "exponential growth," in imagining the world of tomorrow. Some see computer smartness increasing exponentially and Watson's babies making humans distinctly inferior. Some others see medical technologies able to diagnose, treat and re-treat human diseases before they occur, aided by the information explosion from the human genome. Yet others envision transportation systems that shuttle people across interstellar space. All of these visions of the future are aided by a simple premise – an "exponential increase" in information and technology. A few have even banded together to form the "singularity university," to teach people how such exponential increase in knowledge will transform everything in a few years, if not in a few days.
Information and technology have been increasing "exponentially," for a while. Although every generation imagined the future in a similar vein, nothing much has happened. Humans are extremely predictable animals – they will create and destroy, think and sleep, nourish and mutilate and band together in cults and countries to throw stones across the borders. "Exponential increase," in kn0w-how does not affect anything much – it certainly did not improve aggregate societal utility in the last century and it is unlikely to do so in the next, just because futurists so desperately want it so.
For example, the "exponential increase" in medical technology, thus far, has extended human life span in certain quarters and not so in others. Where it extended life span, it did so sub-optimally handing out additional time covered in pain and tribulation. Exponential or not, such improvements, although intellectually stimulating for some, have little value for society. Humans get older and weaker, regardless of all the "exponential increase in knowledge, " till they eventually give up and wither away – this has happened for 50,000 years and it will likely happen for another 50,000 even if futurists come up with robotic pills that can take pictures of the intestine and introduce nanotechnology based micro doses of chemicals so precisely to every nook and corner of the human body.
When the first human in the African savannah looked up in the sky and witnessed the shooting star, she might have gotten the idea that burning something and attaching it to a much smaller payload will propel it across the heavens. 50,000 years later, the "exponential increase" in space know-how got humans to burn many tones of fossil fuel to project a peanut into space. A few thousand years from now, with exponential technology, they will be doing the same – perhaps a bigger peanut with less burning - but fundamentally the same.
Artificial intelligence has been in the air for nearly 30 years now – some dreaming up intelligent robots and others fearing a complete take over by machines. "Exponential increase in machine intelligence," has not yet created something that is as stupid as the humans – something that is irrational and timid, something that will kill its neighbor for tactical monetary gains or something that will organize around religion or such notions. Machines remain vastly superior in-spite of the feeble attempt to change them into humans.
Humans are more likely to reach singularity by stupidity and not by exponential increase in knowledge.
