The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

by Ray Kurzweil

Many of us have a deeply ingrained tendency to view the struggle for scarce resources as an unavoidable cause of violence and as an inherent part of human nature. But while this has been the story of much of human history, I don’t think this will be permanent. The digital revolution has already rolled back scarcity conditions for many of the things we can easily represent digitally, from web searches to social media connections. Fighting over a copy of a physical book may be petty, but on a certain level we can understand it. Two children may tussle over a favorite printed comic because only one can have it and read it at a time. But the idea of people fighting over a PDF document is comical—because your having access to it doesn’t mean I don’t have access to it. We can create as many copies as we need, essentially for free.

I remember that Simpsons episode!