

Vernor Vinge: Signs of the Singularity - erik
http://spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6306

======
zach
My shorthand for the singularity is that it's whenever AI becomes as relevant
as we thought it was going to be. It is really a brilliant rhetorical device
to discuss technology.

Similarly though, you could say that pneumatic tubes are still going to be a
major technology, but first we have to reach the "tubularity." When is
football going to be as massively popular in the US as the rest of the world?
Well, after we reach The Soccularity. Now that you presume it's a future
event, you can bracket the conversation around that.

Note that I'm not doubting the real singularity's existence, just marveling at
this act of rhetorical jujitsu.

~~~
eyudkowsky
_Whose_ act of rhetorical jujitsu? Ever seen anyone define the Singularity
this exact way besides you?

~~~
gruseom
The definition in his first paragraph is unrelated to the criticism in the
second, which is that using the phrase "The Singularity" already frames things
in favor of the idea that it is a real future event.

Personally, the concept has always struck me as the childish fantasy of a
certain personality type. But I think it's worth pointing out that in another
current article on HN (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=205869>), Freeman
Dyson has some interesting things to say about it:

 _Q: Does any of that [concept of "The Singularity"] resonate with you?

Dyson: Not at all. The technical tricks these people are talking about are
only a small part of the human experience. They vastly overestimate their own
importance. I look at the world in a very different way. It's partly a matter
of being old, but I look at the subway networks in cities, for instance. They
also have the N-squared law. If you have a subway network with N routes, its
value to the passenger is N squared. That's fine. But once you get to a
certain number of routes, like 20 or so, there's very rapid growth, followed
by saturation. This will also happen with chips. To some extent, it already
has. It's true that the price per megaflop is going down according to Moore's
Law, but what you can do with the processing power isn't increasing at the
same rate. I remember doing a study on the cost of nuclear power in the 1950s,
when people thought it would be very cheap. We studied what the economic
effect would be if the cost of electricity were zero. The answer is, "Not
much." It costs far more to use electricity than it does to make it. There's
about a 5 percent drop in the GNP if electricity is free. So cheap energy is
all it takes. The same is true of computing power._

~~~
jey
" _Personally, the concept has always struck me as the childish fantasy of a
certain personality type._ "

Do you have some factual basis for considering the claims to be "childish
fantasy"? Or is the fact that it conforms to your stereotypes is enough to
dismiss it without investigating the claims?

~~~
greendestiny
Well its certainly fantasy. What factual basis do you need for categorising
speculation?

The problem with singularity is its unchecked use of extrapolation. With any
kind of prediction you ought to factor in a certain level of uncertainty based
on how much you've observed about a phenomena. Considering we don't have yet
what we'd call real artificial intelligence, let alone artificial
intelligences creating other artificial intelligences - our level of
uncertainty renders any prediction absurd.

~~~
cheponis
AI is, by definition, the set of problems that are not yet solvable by
computers. Ergo, all AI is fantasy. Nevermind that AI has beaten the world
chess champ, is used every day for pattern recognition, stock trading, and a
myriad other uses.

Those who do not prepare for the coming Singularity are going to be blindsided
by it when it arrives.

~~~
gruseom
_AI is, by definition, the set of problems that are not yet solvable by
computers._

No it's not. At least, that's not how leading textbooks define it and it's not
how McCarthy defined it. Moreover you promptly contradict it: beating the
chess champ is hardly "not yet solvable by computers". Did it cease to be AI
the moment it succeeded?

 _Those who do not prepare for the coming Singularity are going to be
blindsided by it when it arrives._

This seems to me a religious sentiment expressed in religious language.
Prepare ye the way of the Lord!

