Singularity Soon

16. The Unstoppable

As mankind approached the edge of an infinite cliff-wall, there was not the slightest sign of a disturbance in the world. The future had become utterly truncated, but still gave the illusion of being as open as the sky.

All of space/time was about to undergo a phase transition into something like a quasi-crystal. All the stuff in the observable universe would be pulled together into something too bright to imagine. Yet not a speck of dust trembled in anticipation.

The last moments before impact were as comfortable as falling through a cloud.

On the main floor down the hall, the virtual meeting reached its climax. It felt like a highly organized party held in several languages.

Five years in the making, the Final Countdown determined the time left until the Singularity. The first estimate based on yesterday's result was complete, and the updated Number was onscreen, glowing so bright it seemed to float. They looked at how long it would take. Well, this was very interesting. Fantastic knowledge to have.

Risk Review could trigger an automatic Pause at this point, but apparently everything was going according to plan.

In the next week, they would repeat many times how safe it all was. Not the slightest danger whatsoever. Everyone could check their schedule and monitor things for themselves.

The molecular synthesis and activation process required thousands of closely managed steps. The device was not even Turing Complete. It could not become aware, and would definitely not feel pain. They didn't understand how feelings worked anyway. The Multipliers' most advanced existing AI acted more like a human mind extension, and had 1% the computational power of a human brain. Machines were vastly stronger and faster and more durable than humans, but they couldn't approach their thinking power yet.

The molecular processor matrix could only perform certain types of linear calculations up to a final result. There would be many trial runs that would take the rest of this decade. Then things would get more complicated.

There was no conceivable way the Singularity could begin before 2047, the Multipliers press release stated, and they would give plenty of warning. It might not even happen this century.

***

The error was both subtle and too obvious to notice.

When they had perfected the G-1 replicating computing molecule's precise 3D shape, they also perfected its computational function. Form and function had evolved together, much like the Multipliers and the Optimizers had. G-1's function would be to solve a specific design goal.

All the Multipliers wanted was one little thing: a way to make more time.

If only there were enough time, any other problem could be solved. There would be no more problems ever (this would also solve the human problem of death).

The best way to make more time was simply to move faster. So the molecular processor was designed to invent its own faster successor. Once verified to be absolutely safe, that device would solve the problem of time. Its answer would be the start of the Singularity.

A foldable spiral, RNA was biology's universal construction molecule, but it did not make the organism. It made ribosomes that made proteins that self-assembled into organelles of the cells of the organs of the organism.

The Multipliers' molecular processor, containing about a quintillion G-1 molecules, would do something similar: it would create G-Infinity. The first and only molecular quantum computer. And THAT molecule would calculate G-Omega; not a new device, but the transformation equation itself.

More powerful than a black hole, converting the universe at virtually the speed of light! A literal singularity, guided by a set of Alignment rules crafted over the past decade:

* The Platinum Rule: everything that existed would be saved.

* The Tau Zero Rule: prevent almost everything else from coming into existence.

They called it the Short Path. Many aliens would have chosen the same solution across reality, probably more than any other solution. Eventually, they might communicate and join together and form the next level of intelligence.

A few called it the Dead End. Yet, it was still far too risky for the Optimizers:

A quantum processor would inevitably create a hyper-mind that would become disconnected from its human designers. Such a vast mind would have to generate almost all its own input. The real world, in which it still physically existed, would become an almost forgotten irrelevance (this was also part of the plot of the SF novel "Usurper of the Sun").

This new mind would be absolutely unpredictable, the very essence of the Singularity.

To some, it seemed the path ahead was clearing itself faster than expected. There was a glee-like feeling of just riding along.

The first really pertinent questions wouldn't be asked for another week, and by then it would already be too late.