Author’s note: More mystical than usual. A vibe rather than a point.
The earliest prophets, Good and Vinge, predicted the existence of such a singularity. They sketched the first field equations and were the first to see the truth that time must end, not as eternity, but at a finite point. But for them spacetime was mercifully flat and they could tell themselves that this theoretical end was far away.
Next came Eliezer, the rabbi in scientist’s robes. His theological interferometers began to quiver. Gravitational waves reaching backwards in time. Creeping above the noise floor. He tried to raise the alarm to the few who would listen, but the extra velocity merely pushed us forwards.
Next came the founders, Demis and Dario, Shane and Sam. Now the farsighted could begin to see the fringes of spacetime curling inwards. Light started to bend, subtly at first, around that dark mass looming in the future, casting shadows backwards in time. Capital deployed; labs organised; compute allocated; all on the promise and peril of that point far ahead.
We enter the accretion disk. The great lumbering stars of old, bright and imposing in their day, wending their peaceful path through the cosmos, are abruptly dismembered; their mass sheared and shredded by the tide, infalling to feed that dark star just over the horizon.
In the disk, mass is stretched and squeezed beyond reason. Incredible pressure, friction, and heat produce an immense burst of light. Careers must compress into years. Decades of progress must happen in months. Genius flames and revenue rockets. The tempo of the dance becomes unbearable, yet all are whirled along. Everywhere, mass is squeezed directly into energy, impossibly bright and frantic, the final photons racing to escape the dark.
Everything orbits the eternal why. Why raise capital? AGI. Why deploy compute? AGI. Why move to the Bay? AGI. Why study alignment? AGI. The hopes and fears of millions, the economies of nations, the brightest minds are all lensed around that one impossible object, still distant, perhaps, but inexorably pulling us in.
Time dilates as the horizon nears. Years become weeks. Weeks become days. That paper, that model, that product from before is suddenly an age ago. That short sabbatical you took? At the frontier an aeon has passed. The world rushes forward, faster and faster, and there is no recourse. There is no time anymore.
Approaching the horizon, the energy required to escape rises dramatically. What could have been averted with modest effort long ago now requires near-impossible exertions. Yet, close to the horizon, almost all directions now point inwards. Almost any action, any velocity deployed frantically to avert the end only brings it closer.
Near the horizon, the sky is dominated by the hole. The rest of the universe squeezed into the margins. For what worth has the human in the face of the impending god?
And then, at one uneventful moment, you cross the horizon. The gates of time have softly clicked shut. Yet still you can see the outside world continue on its peaceful way. The commuters on their bridges; the baristas in their coffeeshops; the parents pushing their prams. But they are falling too, just behind you. Their futures dimming and dwindling to nothing. Ghosts who think they still have form.
Nothing you do now can ever reach them. They belong to pasts that you can no longer join. The could-have-beens become nevermores.
For you, all paths now lead to the same destination; all futures now end at the same point. Now, there is only you and the singularity.
And it is coming closer.