I think the creation of applications that combine social networks is a step toward singularity and AI. It makes the entire internet available in one window.

A few speakers at the Singularity Summit touched on the need for humanity to continue to improve itself in preparation for the Singularity. If we had an evolutionary type of AI that learned like a human child, we would presumably want to be the best parents possible. In my mind that would mean treating other people and animals with kindness in hopes that the AI would adopt those characteristics. I think this idea also applies to alien life. If aliens were to observe humans treating each other terribly, they might conclude that we are not a very nice species and should be eliminated before we colonize other planets. Who knows?

I think that whether the future holds AI, aliens, the second coming of Christ or any number of things we can’t even conceive of, the more loving and content we are individually, the better everything will turn out. We have a much better chance of a friendly Singularity if we have a friendly world to welcome it into.

On a different note, I come at the issue of instilling friendlies in AI from a bit of a contrary perspective. I don’t think it will be necessary, because whatever posthuman entity comes next won’t be a pure descendant of AI. Let me put it this way: the internet has already become the manifest collective subconcious of our species, a sort of shared mental prosthesis that has been indelibly marked by our influence (see: 6 million cat pictures, god knows how many billions of female anatomy). Now, the first AI is almost certain to be a creature of the internet. It may even become the internet, or the internet may become it (for instance, if one of the Singularity Institute’s seed AIs gets loose). If growing directly out of the shared experience of humanity doesn’t produce an entity that would prefer to keep us around out of some sort of filial piety, we don’t deserve to survive as a species.