The last few days I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time reading a lot about different aspects of the technological singularity. I wrote about it in the context of just the technology aspect, as well as what I found related to the other human aspects.

My summary is this.

By definition, we’ll never be ready for a technological singularity, and this should be a concern. While Caribbean leaders talk about fake eyelashes causing crime, which on it’s surface is amusing but has less humorous meaning, there are deeper issues we as a species have across the globe and into our fledgling attempts to go into space.

With the latest issues related to tourism to dark places where you can’t really see anything, where the haves are spending more than the have nots see sometimes in a lifetime so that the have nots end up paying taxes to find out what happened, there’s a clear issue of economic disparity that does not mesh well with measurements of global poverty, where economic disparity is climbing while global poverty is said to be going down.

We’re still fighting this made up concept of race in ways that divide us more than connect us, even as everyone seems to have a laser pointer trying to drag our attention one way or the other. We have wars being fought – real wars – for economic reasons in a time when loud politicians clamor that there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to the economy. We have people having control over other people’s bodies. All of these things are being magnified and polarized through the technologies of social media.

I’d say that before we worry too much about a technological singularity, we should be focusing ourselves on the systems that continue failing the world as a whole.

For now, I’ll put this topic to bed, tucked in with duct tape and leather restraints. Our progress as a species is not measured by technology alone, and I think perhaps now that should be our focus. Artificial intelligence as it is might actually be able to help us with these things, but it has to be carefully done.

It may already be too late for that, but it’s not as if there are many options.