The Singularity Cult
I used to think the Singularity cult was funny, but now it scares me.
HOBOKEN, OCTOBER 25, 2025. In 2008, I was the token skeptic at the “Singularity Summit” in San Jose, the heart of Silicon Valley. The cult-y conclave celebrated the Singularity, the imminent (supposedly) explosion of human-machine intelligence.
I debated Ray Kurzweil, inventor-turned-prophet of the Singularity, in front of hundreds of true believers. Kurzweil flashed slides charting accelerating advances in computers and other technologies, which made the Singularity inevitable (supposedly).
I reminded the audience of areas where science is not advancing. We’ve made little or no headway against cancer and schizophrenia, and we don’t know how brains make minds. So let’s not assume we’ll morph into superintelligent cyborgs soon.
I confided that I once became a god-like cosmic computer during a drug trip, and it was a bummer, so be careful what you wish for. That got a laugh.
Yeah, 17 years ago I treated the Singularity as a joke, a harmless cult for techies. Singularitarians are too smart to worship God, so they worship tech, which will help them transcend their mortal coils and live forever (supposedly).
I take the Singularity seriously now, for two reasons: ChatGPT and Trump. Let me elaborate:
ChatGPT caught me by surprise. Yeah, hype, hallucinations yada yada, the AI bubble will surely burst, as the dot.com bubble did in the early 2000s. But like the Internet, the chatty new AIs aren’t going away, they’re already transforming our culture.
Some of the world’s richest, most powerful men—Altman of ChatGPT, Musk, Bezos, Andreesen, Thiel--are into some version of the Singularity now. And these tech billionaires have cozied up to Trump, who has boosted investment in and slashed regulation of AI.
It’s no longer enough to smirk at the Singularity cult, it needs to be scrutinized and exposed. Adam Becker does that brilliantly in More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity.
Becker, who just gave a zoom talk to my school, Stevens Institute of Technology, is more than qualified to critique the Singularity on technical grounds. He has a doctorate in astrophysics, and he’s the author of a terrific book on the meaning of quantum mechanics, What Is Real?
In More Everything Forever, Becker considers the feasibility and desirability of superintelligence, immortality and space colonization, the key components of the Singularity. He also delves into the Singularitarians’ fears, desires, motives. What do these guys really want?
Becker has helped me see the Singularity cult as a mutant manifestation of tech-fueled capitalism, which is threatening to hijack civilization. Like the old robber barons, Altman et al crave money and power, but they also want more brains, territory, life. What’s the point of making billions if you get old and die like every other schmuck?
The Singularitarians loathe “stagnation,” they seek not just growth but acceleration. In his zoom talk, Becker shows a video clip in which bookseller-turned-rocketeer Jeff Bezos calls “stasis” the greatest problem facing humanity.
If we never move beyond Earth, Bezos explains, “we will have to cap population, we will have to cap energy usage per capita. Or we can fix that problem by moving out into space.” More everything forever, baby!
Becker excels at exposing the Singularitarians’ intellectual pretensions. He skewers the “effective altruism” movement and its corollary “longtermism.” These ideologies prioritize the well-being of trillions of people who might live in the future, scattered across the Milky Way, over our well-being right here and now.
Effective altruism provides intellectual cover for the Singularitarians. They can say: We’re not greedy megalomaniacs, we’re altruistic! We want what’s best for our galactic cyborg descendants!
In another clip shown by Becker, Sam Altman responds to a question about climate change. “Once we have a really powerful superintelligence,” Altman says, “addressing climate change will not be particularly difficult.”
Here’s the problem with Altman’s statement: To perform their calculations, new AIs require vast server farms, which spew pollutants and gobble up energy and water. So AI is exacerbating climate change and other environmental problems.
AI is also replacing human workers in many fields—including tech! AI makes it easier for governments and corporations to monitor and manipulate us. AI has been weaponized in Ukraine and other war zones, and AI arms races are roiling relations between the U.S., China and other nations.
To summarize: AI is damaging the environment, amplifying inequality, undermining democracy and making World War III more likely. And what is Altman’s solution to these problems? More AI! The supersmart machines will save us! Supposedly!
I’m not averse to futuristic speculation. Freeman Dyson, in Infinite in All Directions, and David Deutsch, in The Beginning of Infinity, lay out intriguing visions of human possibility. But these free-thinking physicists are merely saying: Imagine this…
That’s quite different from multi-billionaires insisting that we take their science-fiction fantasies seriously and support them with our taxes. Especially when the pursuit of these fantasies, which will benefit humanoid extraterrestrials a million years hence (supposedly), imperils those of us living on Earth today.
Some Singularitarians have kids. Musk has at least 14. Doesn’t he give a shit about them?
In a 2008 article for IEEE Spectrum, I wrote: “Engineers and scientists should be helping us face the world’s problems and find solutions to them, rather than indulging in escapist, pseudoscientific fantasies like the Singularity.”
I stand by that statement. ChatGPT shows what automated-plagiarism algorithms can accomplish when harnessed to vast databases. Impressive! But there have been no breakthroughs against cancer and mental illness since I spoke at the Singularity Summit in 2008. The mind-body problem remains unsolved. Science’s limits are as evident as ever.
Ray Kurzweil, now 77, still insists that science is about to conquer death and make us “superhuman.” Kurzweil’s yearning for immortality would be poignant, even endearing, if he and his fellow Singularitarians weren’t so arrogant, influential and politically connected.
The Singularity cult implicitly poses the old question: What’s the point of life? Beneath the sci-fi razzle-dazzle of the Singularity lurks the most atavistic of answers: Life is a battle, and the point is to be a winner, not a loser.
This is the outlook of warlords, predatory capitalists, Trump. I don’t know why we’re here, but surely it’s not to wage AI-enabled war until we annihilate ourselves.
Further Reading:
You can watch Becker’s zoom talk here. See also my discussion of his book More Everything Forever in my previous column, “The Rise of the Arrogant Apes.”
How AI Moguls Are Like Mobsters
Cutting Through the ChatGPT Hype
Should Machines Replace Mathematicians?
Freeman Dyson’s Disturbing Scientific Theology