5 ms·

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.
      - gruseom 18y ago
        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!
- pygy 18y ago
  > 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. The human brain has billions of routes, and uses them somewhat efficiently...
  - Retric 18y ago
    Not at the same time. Edit: The brain uses most links but you use a tiny fraction of your overall memories at any one time.
    - pygy 18y ago
      That's not the point. It's the massive amount of neurons and (finely tuned) synapses that allows human intelligence, and the vast amount of possible mental "states". Functional organization is of course of prime importance, but AFAIK, it's the sheer cortical surfaces that allow us to be smarter than apes (who are able to use symbolic (sign) language, teach it to their offspring, use tools, and recognize themselves in the mirror, all feats that were once thought to be proper to the human species). We might have reached a local maximum , though(related to the neurotransmission speed?). Neanderthals had a bigger brain, but were seemingly dumber and less culturally advanced than contemporaneous Homo Sapiens.

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.
    - gruseom 18y ago
      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!
pygy 18y ago
> 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. The human brain has billions of routes, and uses them somewhat efficiently...
- Retric 18y ago
  Not at the same time. Edit: The brain uses most links but you use a tiny fraction of your overall memories at any one time.
  - pygy 18y ago
    That's not the point. It's the massive amount of neurons and (finely tuned) synapses that allows human intelligence, and the vast amount of possible mental "states". Functional organization is of course of prime importance, but AFAIK, it's the sheer cortical surfaces that allow us to be smarter than apes (who are able to use symbolic (sign) language, teach it to their offspring, use tools, and recognize themselves in the mirror, all feats that were once thought to be proper to the human species). We might have reached a local maximum , though(related to the neurotransmission speed?). Neanderthals had a bigger brain, but were seemingly dumber and less culturally advanced than contemporaneous Homo Sapiens.