The Singularity Race by Mark de Castrique

singularity will overpower and absorb all rivals.”
    â€œAbsolute power,” Mullins murmured.
    â€œCorrupts absolutely. Why should that axiom not apply to a self-aware thinking machine?”
    â€œOr to the human beings who might manage to control it?” Mullins said.
    â€œPrecisely. God only knows which would be worse.”
    Brentwood’s bright eyes lost focus as a new idea sparked in his brain. Mullins got the feeling the man truly was a genius, able to envision possibilities others couldn’t imagine.
    â€œMaybe that’s what we’re doing—creating God. A super intelligent being who can peel back the secrets of time and space in some infinitely looping Möbius strip where man is created by God so that God can be created by man.” Brentwood felt himself slipping into one of his trances and blinked a few times to clear his over-revving mind. “Sorry. Do you get the picture?”
    â€œI believe so,” Mullins said. “You want to be the person controlling the machine.”
    â€œNo. I want to be the person programming the machine. Programming the machine with self-control, a safeguard against both human and computer tyranny.”
    Mullins saw a glimmer of where Brentwood was heading. “That’s the role for Dr. Li, isn’t it?”
    The CEO beamed like his three-year-old had just pronounced two plus two equals four. “A vital step is teaching a computer to find solutions to problems on its own. The field is called deep learning and the most promising model is proving to be blatantly obvious. The human brain. We’ve mapped the human genome. Now we’re attempting to map every neuron cluster, synapse connection, and sensory input to reproduce the intellectual functionality developed by evolution.”
    â€œThe marriage of neuroscience and computer science,” Mullins said. “Dr. Li’s topic at the conference.”
    Brentwood couldn’t restrain himself. He reached out and grabbed Mullins’ good arm. “Yes. Yes. But her brilliance is being wasted—overlooked by focusing on the human brain as a model of learning, a super intelligent problem-solver.”
    Mullins had to admit he was intrigued by what the man was saying. He was also confused. “What then?”
    â€œIt’s not the discovery of answers that will propel IA into unknown dimensions, it’s the ability to imagine the questions in the first place. To dream of things beyond the mind of us poor mortals.”
    â€œAnd that’s not the model of the brain?”
    Brentwood tapped his temple with a forefinger. “Not the conscious brain. Not the problem-solving mind. I firmly believe we’re looking at the role of the subconscious, the walled up, secretive partitioned space where seeds of ideas, unique connections, and fresh perspectives bubble and percolate until rising to conscious awareness in an ah-ha moment. Like the one I experienced envisioning the power of the Cloud.
    â€œIf I’d been consciously thinking of that too soon, I’d have dismissed it for all the reasons it wouldn’t work. But my subconscious nurtured it in safety until it was ready to be born, too powerful to be ignored.”
    The man didn’t sound crazy, Mullins thought. Fanatical, yes, but not crazy. He’d read about people saying their revolutionary ideas popped into their heads fully formed. He’d experienced it to some degree when pieces of an investigation suddenly gelled and he’d awaken in the middle of the night with an unexpected insight. No, the man wasn’t crazy.
    â€œThat’s Dr. Li’s area,” Mullins said. “She’ll map it for you?”
    â€œNot just map it. She’s the most qualified person in the world to create both the complex algorithms and partitioning protocols to truly make an artificial mind with that undervalued component, a subconscious seat of imagination.”
    Mullins couldn’t