The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

by Ray Kurzweil

Even the great historical conflicts of the twentieth century were not nearly as deadly in proportional terms as the continual violence in the pre-state conditions of humanity’s past. Pinker studied twenty-seven undeveloped societies throughout history without a formal state—a mix of hunter-gatherers and hunter-horticulturalists that probably represent most human communities during prehistory.[169] He estimates that these societies averaged a rate of death in warfare of 524 per 100,000 people per year. By comparison, the twentieth century saw two world wars—which included genocide, atomic bombings, and the largest-scale organized violence the world has ever seen—yet in Germany, Japan, and Russia, three of the countries hit hardest by this slaughter, the annual war death rates during that century were just 144, 27, and 135 per 100,000, respectively. The United States, by comparison, made it through the twentieth century with just 3.7 annual warfare deaths per 100,000, despite entering into conflicts all over the world.