5 ms·

Vernor Vinge: Signs of the Singularity

14 points by erik 18y ago

zach 18y ago
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 18y ago
  Whose act of rhetorical jujitsu? Ever seen anyone define the Singularity this exact way besides you?
  - gruseom 18y ago
    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 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 18y ago
      "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 18y ago
        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 18y ago
        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.
        greendestiny 18y ago
        Thats just a convenient definition of AI because we don't really otherwise have a good one for human like consciousness. That we don't probably says a lot about the size of this uncertainty factor that singularity ignores. Artificial human like intelligence will profoundly influence society, I don't doubt it. I just think the quality of thinking under the umbrella of 'Singularity' is very unlikely to usefully prepare anyone. When humans first picked up a rock to use as a tool they possessed something with which to make a better tool - this tool singularity has been ongoing for thousands of years - stop talking about it like the rapture, it's embarrassing.

14 points by erik 18y ago

zach 18y ago

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 18y ago
Whose act of rhetorical jujitsu? Ever seen anyone define the Singularity this exact way besides you?
- gruseom 18y ago
  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 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 18y ago
    "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 18y ago
      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 18y ago
        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.
        greendestiny 18y ago
        Thats just a convenient definition of AI because we don't really otherwise have a good one for human like consciousness. That we don't probably says a lot about the size of this uncertainty factor that singularity ignores. Artificial human like intelligence will profoundly influence society, I don't doubt it. I just think the quality of thinking under the umbrella of 'Singularity' is very unlikely to usefully prepare anyone. When humans first picked up a rock to use as a tool they possessed something with which to make a better tool - this tool singularity has been ongoing for thousands of years - stop talking about it like the rapture, it's embarrassing.