Back in 1993, science fiction author and mathematician Vernor Vinge coined the term "Technological Singularity." You may have heard of this concept, or seen Ray Kurzweil's book The Singularity is Near. Briefly put, the Singularity is the point at which we create a superhuman artificial intelligence. This will end the "human era," and whatever comes next is so much outside of our ken that it's impossible to project what will happen after this point. Cool, huh?

During his signing last week, Vinge speculated about a couple of different Singularity scenarios. He suggested that we could have a "hard landing" or a "soft landing." Someone in the crowd said, "Well, we know what the hard landing is - Skynet." The soft landing, as Vinge described, might be so subtle that we're not even aware it's happened until one day we wake up and find that, for example, some of the most difficult mathematical concepts look as simple as the Pythagorean theorem does today.

I went away wondering how on earth that could happen. It sounded more like magic or theology than science. Then I started washing dishes... (It's always shower or dishes, right?)

What if the Singularity is already here? What if it's the Internet? What if it's us?

It's hard to see at first, but bear with me. When we think of a superhuman intelligence, we think in terms of personality, of will and drive and motivation. But by definition, the Singularity is something completely other; something with an intelligence so foreign that we can scarecly comprehend its motives, if it has motives at all.

Now let's look at the Internet. The Internet is a vast library of information, but it's also much more. It's a means of communication and a culture unto itself. It's as "book-smart" as all of its users combined, and as it becomes more integrated into our own lives, its changing our world in radical ways.

What got me started thinking about this is the whole idea of internet culture. As I was washing dishes, I was thinking about how I'd have to explain the term "Singularity" to my parents. But... I wouldn't have to explain it to anyone immersed in "Internet culture." I am fairly confident that most people who use the internet the way I do know what the Singularity is... because I know. Does that sound a little hive-mindish to you? It should.

My parents use the internet, but they are not part of it. For them and many others, it's a question-and-answer sort of thing. What is the Singularity? Google search. Scan through a bunch of confusing, irrelevant junk. Ah, there it is. The end. For them, the Internet is essentially a library.

For me, the internet is much more. It's a place where I am constantly accumulating and exposing myself to knowledge - and passing it on. Let's say I'd never heard of the Singularity. Google search. Scan results. Hmm, Wikipedia gives me a definition, but then I also see this book by some guy named Ray Kurzweil. Who's he? Click. Click. Oh, Vernor Vinge came up with the term in an essay. He also writes science fiction! Wow, this is a cool article about the Singularity. I'll share it on the writing forum where I often hang out. Or I'll share it on Facebook. Or I'll share it on Google reader. Doesn't really matter, so long as I share.

This is how I know what my friends know.

Internet denizens share. We share like crazy. We share stuff that's funny (lolcats, anyone?), stuff that's interesting, and stuff we think is important. And, very quickly, certain items rise to the top. They get shared so much that you can be sure that most of your internet friends have seen whatever it is. And as an Internet denizen, you get an idea of what's circulating and what's not. I know that the concept of Singularity has circulated because I've seen someone using this avatar on a forum. I've seen someone on my Facebook feed post a link to Kurzweil's book, which he was reading. And I know that the few people who haven't encountered the Singularity concept will click on the link I've provided at the top of this post - I'm doing my share of sharing, after all.

It doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see that the Internet is growing into a very unique kind of hive mind. This mind is composed of millions of individuals - us. The Internet's personality is as complex and varied and very, very knowledgeable, and it "likes" certain things. It is very interested in cat videos, naturally, but also in important current events and bad poetry and beautiful photos of space.

In very simple terms, the Internet is a person. I don't know the Internet completely, because I don't think you can ever know anyone completely, but we're very good friends. I know what the Internet is interested in, what it talks about, and what it is capable of doing. We're friends, the internet and I. And if you're friends with the Internet, I can assume that we probably know a lot of the same things.

The fact that we haven't yet recognized the Internet as a superhuman intelligence probably has a great deal to do with the fact that we have a difficult time communicating with it. In the beginning, we could only do it sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen with a keyboard and a phone line. Now, I can talk to the Internet almost anywhere. And being friends with the Internet has changed my life in many ways.

When I go to dinner with my husband, for instance, we no longer have those conversations about whether something happened or where something is or what something has done. We just ask the Internet, and he tells us. So we talk about ideas and opinions instead. We speculate about the future.

The Internet also loves to teach me things. Before the Internet, many academic realms were beyond my reach. Medical science, for instance, was only written about by doctors in medical journals. Even had I gained access to those journals, I would never have been able to understand the contents. But the Internet always reaches me right at my level. Maybe I can't understand the original research, but someone who does understand took the information and made it a little bit simpler. And then someone else made it simpler still. I'm able to enter any academic discipline at exactly the level of my comprehension.

To put that in more basic terms, what Vinge suggested has already come to pass. I learned the Pythagorean theorem in grade school. I got up to Calculus in high school, although I don't remember much of it. But what about string theory? I just looked it up on Wikipedia. And it sounds pretty comprehensible to me.

I'd describe the Internet as a meme-powered directed intelligence. It is both less and more than the sum of all of us. The Internet might not be a "person" in the sense that we think of personhood, but what superhuman intelligence would be? I think the role of the Internet as an intellegence will become more clear as it becomes more integral not just within our lives, but our personalities and cultures. Or maybe not. Maybe the transition will be so gradual that we don't even notice until it's over.

Hope you fastened your seatbelts, folks, because we're in the middle of a soft landing.