The Gentle Singularity and the Great Disconnect
Been thinking a lot about Sam Altman’s latest blog post after stumbling across the discussion online. The Gentle Singularity - what a perfectly Silicon Valley way to package the complete transformation of human existence, right? Like calling a Category 5 hurricane a “weather event with enhanced precipitation opportunities.”
The most telling part of the whole piece wasn’t even Altman’s writing, but the reaction to it. Someone pointed out that this might be the last blog post he writes without AI assistance, which is both fascinating and slightly terrifying. Here we are, watching the CEO of OpenAI transition from human writer to human-AI hybrid in real time, and he’s treating it like switching from a typewriter to a word processor.
But what really got under my skin was his analogy about the subsistence farmer from a thousand years ago looking at our modern jobs and thinking they’re “fake.” It’s a clever rhetorical device, but it glosses over something fundamental: that subsistence farmer knew exactly why their work mattered. Every day they didn’t tend their crops meant their family might starve. There’s something to be said for that kind of clarity, even if the lifestyle was brutal.
The discussion that followed was even more revealing. People were joking about becoming “professional Monster Rancher 2 gamers” or “competitive masturbators” in the AI future, but underneath the humor was a real anxiety. What happens when the last human job is automated away?
Working in IT here in Melbourne, I see this tension daily. Half my colleagues are excited about AI tools making their jobs easier, while the other half are quietly updating their resumes. The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m part of the industry building the very systems that might make my own role obsolete. But at least I understand the technology I’m helping to create - most people don’t have that luxury.
What frustrates me most about Altman’s vision is how it conveniently sidesteps the distribution problem. Sure, AI might make everything cheaper and more abundant, but who controls that abundance? The same tech billionaires who are currently hoarding wealth while their workers can barely afford rent in San Francisco? The ones who just donated to Trump’s inauguration fund?
Someone in the discussion mentioned that housing will still be unaffordable in five years, AI revolution or not. They’re probably right. You can’t download a house, and as long as property remains a speculative asset rather than a human right, no amount of artificial intelligence is going to fix that fundamental issue.
The environmental angle is interesting too. Altman claims the average ChatGPT query uses about as much energy as running an oven for a second, which sounds reasonable until you multiply that by billions of queries. It’s the same logic that makes cryptocurrency seem environmentally friendly if you only look at individual transactions.
What bothers me most is the assumption that this “gentle” singularity will somehow naturally benefit everyone. History suggests otherwise. Every major technological revolution has initially concentrated wealth and power before eventually (sometimes) spreading benefits more broadly. The Industrial Revolution created unprecedented prosperity, but it took decades of labor organizing and government intervention to ensure workers got their fair share.
The AI revolution feels different because of its speed and scope, but also because the people driving it seem less interested in sharing the benefits. At least the industrial barons built libraries and hospitals with their wealth. Today’s tech titans seem more focused on escaping to Mars or building bunkers in New Zealand.
Maybe I’m being too pessimistic. The discussion did include some genuinely optimistic voices talking about a future where people move from project to project based on passion rather than necessity. That sounds appealing, assuming we solve the minor detail of how people eat and pay rent in the meantime.
The truth is, we’re all just guessing about what comes next. But one thing seems certain: the decisions being made right now about AI development and deployment will shape the next century of human civilization. Those decisions are being made by a small group of mostly young, mostly male, mostly American tech executives who have never struggled to pay a power bill.
That should worry all of us, whether we’re excited about the gentle singularity or not.