Discussions of the technological singularity often assume an inevitable leap to a future where machines surpass human intelligence in a runaway process. Yet, this focus reflects more than empirical forecasting—it reveals a preference for a particular possible world that aligns with cultural hopes or anxieties about transformation.1
Philosopher David Thorstad’s critique in Against the singularity hypothesis2 helps us see that this singularity-world is not a necessary or even likely outcome. Rather, it is a scenario prized for its imaginative appeal, yet one for which we lack credible causal chains or trajectories from our current reality.
This recognition matters because treating the singularity as an unavoidable future blinds us to alternative outcomes—other possible worlds—where technology evolves differently, slower, or in ways that don’t fit the grand narrative of exponential self-improvement.
Similarly, in organisational disruption, companies too often adopt the story of inevitable transformation without critically engaging with the complex, contingent realities that make many outcomes possible but few certain.
By situating the singularity as one among many possible worlds, and acknowledging its implausibility given current evidence, we create space for more grounded, flexible strategies. These strategies accept uncertainty and complexity rather than chasing a narrowly imagined future.
In this light, the most responsible response to disruption—technological or organisational—is humility about the futures we imagine and rigour in assessing the paths that might lead there.
- Evans-Greenwood, Peter. “Why We Keep Misreading Disruption.” Substack newsletter. The Puzzle and Its Pieces (blog), May 27, 2025. https://thepuzzleanditspieces.substack.com/p/why-we-keep-misreading-disruption. ↩︎
- Thorstad, David. “Against the Singularity Hypothesis.” Philosophical Studies, May 10, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02143-5. ↩︎