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Interview: Vernor VingeInterview: Vernor VingePosted Dec 10, 2008 22:17 UTC (Wed) by brouhaha (subscriber, #1698)In reply to: Interview: Vernor Vinge by leoc Parent article: Interview: Vernor Vinge If it's "a bit too much like religion", that just means that you're reading too much into what the word singularity means in this context. It's very hard to predict the future with any degree of accuracy, and since the advance of technology is on an exponential curve (e.g. Moore's Law), it is clear that predicting the future is becoming more difficult. From that, it seems obvious (at least since Vinge pointed it out) that there is some point in the future beyond which it is impossible to make sensible predictions, and that point isn't very far away. What that doesn't tell us is the nature of the singularity itself or the post-singularity world. Naturally we can speculate about it, and anyone that tells you that the singularity will be the result of a specific trend or technology (e.g. nanotechnology) is by definition only speculating.
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Interview: Vernor Vinge Posted Dec 11, 2008 9:58 UTC (Thu) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375) [Link]
Science Fiction authors using the term 'singularity' makes me think of the huge numbers of economic experts I saw on CNN in early October talking about the world's economic state. Each and every one sidestepped a real answer with the words 'it's hard'. I don't doubt that imagining a future radically different to ours, in consistent detail (or understanding how our global financial system might behave) is hard. But to say 'it's singular and will be unlike anything we have seen' robs me of enjoying the fantasy of what it *might* be.
Interview: Vernor Vinge Posted Dec 11, 2008 15:44 UTC (Thu) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
I believe the word singularity has a more rigourous definition. IANAP, but I believe singularity in physics refers to either time 0 where backwards extrapolation divides by zero, or the similar problem trying to calculate what happens inside a black hole. You literally lose the ability to predict what happens.
Thus it is with social singularities. The social change is so profound that you cannot predict what will happen. No one could have predicted the changes the printing press made in Europe, with growing literacy and democratization of governments. No one could have predicted the changes wrought by electronics / computers / the internet. No one can predict what will happen when computers achieve human equivalent intelligence, and shortly thereafter superhuman intelligence in accord with Moore's law.
Think of it as a phase change. People whose weather experience is limited to temperatures of 30-40C normally and 20C once in a blue moon would imagine 0 to just be more so, possibly uncomfortable. Snow and ice would be utterly foreign to them, unimaginable and unpredictable.
Interview: Vernor Vinge Posted Dec 11, 2008 23:35 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
The definition of a singularity comes from maths, not physics: in simple
terms it's the point at which something goes abruptly to negative or positive infinity (or zero, sometimes). In maths it's not necessarily a sign that there's anything wrong: in physics, it tends to mean your model's broken down and can't model those conditions (on the arbitrary assumption that infinities don't exist in the real universe).
The singularities at the Big Bang and inside black holes are two examples
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