The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

by Ray Kurzweil

The spread of knowledge brought wealth and political empowerment, and legislative bodies like England’s House of Commons became much more outspoken. While most power was still held by the king, Parliament was able to deliver tax protests to the monarch and impeach those of his ministers it did not like.[186] The 1642–1651 English Civil War eliminated the monarchy altogether, after which it was reinstalled in a form subservient to Parliament; later the government adopted a Bill of Rights that clearly established the principle that the king could rule only by consent of the people.[187] Prior to the American War of Independence, England, while far from a true democracy, was the most democratic nation in world history—and, notably, one of the most literate.[188] Between the collapse of the Roman Republic in the first century BC and the American Revolution, there had been a number of other societies that had elections or roughly republican political institutions, but these always had very limited political participation and always lapsed back into tyranny. During the Middle Ages there were several republics in Italy centered on trade-rich city-states like Genoa and Venice, yet these were in fact strongly aristocratic. For example, the leaders of Venice (called doges) were elected for life through a complex selection process that kept noble families in power and didn’t let ordinary people play any role.[189] From 1569 to 1795, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had a remarkably...