I've been reading a lot of singularity-based science fiction recently:
- Accelerando by Charles Stross,
- Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow,
- and Manna by Marshall Brain.
I suggest you start with the latter because it'll only take a few hours, though it's the worst written of the three.
Accelerando and Manna are set during transitional periods as humanity approaches and eventually passes through the singularity. Down and Out, on the other hand, takes place in a persistent world where technological progress seems relatively stable. The books all draw from a common pool of technologies often mentioned in the context of the singularity: Brain uploading/downloading is used extensively in Down and Out, where people routinely create backups of themselves as a safeguard against accidental death. Manna heavily touts the advantages of virtual reality as a way to fulfill your desires. Accelerando incorporates both concepts and then takes them a step further -- instead of creating backups, people clone multiple instances of themselves and exist in many places simultaneously. VR is not seen as simply a pleasurable pastime, but life itself for the entirety of post-singularity civilization, which exists as nothing more than an array of microprocessors on the surfaces of a Dyson shell.
Interestingly, a superhuman artificial intelligence is only present in Manna, which gets its name from a managerial program that evolves into a dystopian global dictator. The other two books eschew AI in favor of human augmentation; specifically, brain enhancing implants. Such implants are primarily used in Down and Out to interface with other people (communicating using subvocalization, viewing reputation points, etc.), while the characters of Accelerando use them to access enormous processor arrays.
These technologies give rise to some profound problems that will have to be addressed at some point.
When immortality arrives, it will almost certainly be something only the extremely wealthy can afford, which could incite an anti-tech revolution. And once everyone can live forever, we'll run into major population problems. Either the birth rate will have to be controlled (i.e. only mortals can reproduce) or we will have to expand outward, probably starting with the colonization/eventual terraforming of Mars. Accelerando offers a third solution, noting that people can be packed much more densely when they're reduced to data.
Artificial intelligence will also harbor problems in addition to its benefits. AI has been a source of paranoia for decades, and not without good reason: ignoring the fears of a robotic extermination of mankind, the existence of an AI equivalent to even a single human brain would have enormously far-reaching consequences. As described in Manna, humans would quickly be replaced by robots in many job sectors, and there would be widespread feelings of resentment and worthlessness before the benefits of a post-scarcity economy could truly be felt.
Finally, virtual reality poses perhaps the greatest threat: contentment. Once everyone has access to VR, and the massive energy requirements are fulfilled by a Dyson structure, what incentive do we have to progress any further as a species? As Scott Adams put it, "I'm afraid the holodeck will be society's last invention." Sure, the sun will eventually burn out, but that's at least a few billion years off. And there's no reason why simulated brains have to live in real time -- they could experience a year's worth of life in a single "real" day.
Of course, once we reach those timescales, we'll have bigger problems to worry about. See Asimov's The Last Question.
