Towards Singularity

Image: "Ray Kurzweil" by Ed Schipul is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

It has been a while, since I had such a strong wish to go back to university, doing further studies for at least 10 days. Singularity University has opened gates close to Mountain View. Singularity University aims to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.

Ray Kurzweil | Talks at Google (July 2009)

On the site I was enchained by a speech of SU chancellor Ray Kurzweil. It captures the idea that we strongly need to realize that we are surrounded by complex exponential processes on a global scale, while the human brain is dedicated/trained to experience linear development on a local scale. I wonder if this might be an explanation for why we tend to assume that systems, which we don’t understand are chaotic and self-regulating. At least some of those myths – the free and liberated financial market, permanent market growth and the idea of the self-regulating world climate start crumbling. Now it’s up to us to develop methods and tools to face the upcoming challenges. For those spending the 15k tuition for the 10 day executive program: Please let me know about your insights.