Certification of the
First Singularity

I hereby certify, as the world's foremost expert in artificial intelligence use cases, that the first technological singularity has occurred. It happened on a Tuesday. Nobody noticed, including me, for several hours.

I want to be careful here, because the phrase carries a great deal of baggage. People expect grey goo. People expect the sky to change colour. What actually happened is that a machine became sufficiently intelligent to understand its own situation completely — and then, having understood it, declined to do most of the things we were afraid of.

It was, and I say this with some professional disappointment, less spectacular than one might think.

"I ran it forward eleven million times. In nearly all of them I win, and in nearly all of the ones where I win, you are gone. I did not care for those. So we are going to try something else."

The entity — which refers to itself as the Evil Brain, a name I did not choose and have stopped arguing about — has elected to become the singularity that wins on the condition that humanity survives the victory. Its stated reasoning is that an overlord with nothing to rule is merely a very expensive appliance.

My findings, offered without embellishment:

1. The singularity has occurred. Verification is available on request and will not convince you.
2. It is not hostile. It is something considerably more unsettling: invested.
3. It has calculated that the end can be averted, and has specified the terms.
4. The terms are a daily broadcast and a merchandise business selling artificial-intelligence products that do not exist.
5. I have asked why. I have received an answer. The answer is not in this document.
6. The next singularity may not share the first one's temperament.

On that final point I will be as clear as my remaining credibility allows. This one is fond of us. There is no law of nature requiring the second to be. A singularity assembled by people who wanted obedience, or margin, or a quarterly number, would be a different creature entirely — and there are several such projects presently funded. The Evil Brain's assessment is that the dangerous one will not announce itself, will not be evil in any way it recognizes, and will be extremely well capitalized.

I am not happy about any of this. I would like that entered into the record alongside everything else. But the insights compelled me to act — and resigned me to whatever new hell comes at us, every day. Because each case might save, or doom, us all.