The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

by Ray Kurzweil

My own assessment of this danger is that we are unlikely simply to stumble across such a destructive event. Consider how unlikely it would be to accidentally produce an atomic bomb. Such a device requires a precise configuration of materials and actions, and the original required an extensive and precise engineering project to develop. Inadvertently creating a hydrogen bomb would be even less plausible. One would have to create the precise conditions of an atomic bomb in a particular arrangement with a hydrogen core and other elements. Stumbling across the exact conditions to create a new class of catastrophic chain reaction at a subatomic level appears to be even less likely. The consequences are sufficiently devastating, however, that the precautionary principle should lead us to take these possibilities seriously. This potential should be carefully analyzed prior to carrying out new classes of accelerator experiments. However, this risk is not high on my list of twenty-first-century concerns.