Working With - Not Against

Given humanity's record for developing technology to use in defensive/militaristic arenas, and bearing in mind popular fears relating to state control of the populace, it's easy to become despondent and paranoid about where we might end up in a few years time. Dark dystopian images have been routinely touted in science fiction for decades, if not centuries, and all too often form a template from which many people (in lay and professional circles) formulate their own hypotheses of what the superintelligent future might look like.

However, railing against the powers that be and denouncing politicians and military leaders as harbingers of doom doesn't seem particularly constructive when you bear in mind that the entire cross-section of our species alive at the time of the Singularity, not just the currently interested parties, will need to be actively involved; if only to make sure the first superintelligent machines are working in a way that will be fully representative of the needs and desires of their creators.

A co-operative approach that gives citizens full and transparent access to national and global tech-development policies, and then allows them to feed back without fear of censorship, could be a necessity for the future. This would at least give the opportunity for decisions concerning these issues to result from democratic process... even if some people choose to abstain from voicing their opinions.

The Singularity Institute's Overview includes the following words:

"We can do better. The future doesn't have to be the dystopia promised by doomsayers. The future doesn't even have to be the flashy yet unimaginative chrome-and-computer world of traditional futurism. We can become smarter. We can step beyond the millennia-old messes created by human-level intelligence. Humanity can solve its problems – both the huge visible problems everyone talks about and the huge silent problems we've learned to take for granted. If the nature of the world we live in bothers you, there is something rational you can do about it. We can do better with your support."