Anti-Singularity: Toward Harmony with Machines by Maxwell S. Foley

If we build it, we’ll be okay.

The futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that the singularity—the synthesis of artificial and organic intelligences—will occur around the year 2045. Meanwhile, today’s disciples of Kurzweil espouse doom, that we have already created the means of our own extinction at the hands of accelerating Artificial Intelligence and the “non-alignment” of the culture that surrounds its creation. 

Where alignment theory treats machines as potentially hostile aliens to be domesticated by a single governing body, Anti-Singularity proposes a counter-philosophy: harmony—a relationship between humans and machines grounded in mutual adaptation and competition. Drawing from philosophy, systems theory, and cybernetic ethics, Foley argues that intelligence—human or artificial—cannot be reduced to a single measurable goal or “utility function.”

Provocative and elegantly reasoned, Anti-Singularity calls for an end to the fear-based discourse that frames AI as an apocalypse waiting to happen. Instead, it imagines coexistence: a future in which minds, organic and synthetic alike, work together without submission or supremacy.

Print ISBN: 979-8-901160-30-5

• Jacketed hardcover, linen on board
• Sewn signatures, 50lb cream paper