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No, that was John von Neumann. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Technological_singularity_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neuma

No, that was John von Neumann. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Technological_singularity_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Technological... Vinge did "present a fully fleshed-out concept of cyberspace" in True Names in 1981 though. > True Names is a 1981 science fiction novella by American writer Vernor Vinge, a seminal work of the cyberpunk genre. It is one of the earliest stories to present a fully fleshed-out concept of cyberspace, which would later be central to cyberpunk. The story also contains elements of transhumanism, anarchism, and even hints about The Singularity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Names

nl 5y ago
Hmm.. The first to use the concept of a "singularity" in the technological context was John von Neumann.[4] Stanislaw Ulam reports a discussion with von Neumann "centered on the accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue but also The concept and the term "singularity" were popularized by Vernor Vinge in his 1993 essay The Coming Technological Singularity, in which he wrote that it would signal the end of the human era, as the new superintelligence would continue to upgrade itself and would advance technologically at an incomprehensible rate. both from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity (linked from the link you shared). I've never seen it attributed to von Neumann before, and it looks like Wikipeida has slowly increased the emphasis on it. In this earlier edit it says: > This quote has been several times taken out of context and attributed to von Neumann himself, likely due to von Neumann's widespread fame and influence. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technological_singularity&oldid=9707855#Early_conceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technological_sin... von Neumann wasn't credited until late 2004: See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technological_singularity&oldid=7660278#Early_conceptions_of_the_Singularity https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technological_sin...
- carapace 5y ago
  Here's Vinge on the subject: > 2001 V. Vinge in Locus Jan. 69/1 > In 1982, on a scientific panel, it occurred to me that with all these ideas I had been talking about and others had been talking about earlier, basically if we ever did get a human-equivalent intelligence, very soon things would be very different. Since the creative impetus would not be from us, it would be in some sense unknowable… This panel was the first time I used the term ‘technological singularity’. I did a 900-word piece about that in ’83 in Omni, and almost all my science fiction has been dealing with it. In ’92 or ’93, NASA asked me to come and give a talk on it, and I did an essay where I also tried to look at precursors. In John von Neumann’s obituary written by Stan Ulam, he relates a conversation he had with von Neumann in which he even uses the term ‘essential singularity’. To me, von Neumann’s notion was not quite the same thing. He was saying that technological progress would become so advanced that the situation would be unknowable—that much is like what I was saying. But to me, the fundamental reason for the technological singularity is, technology creates something that is smarter than human. https://sfdictionary.com/view/294/singularity https://sfdictionary.com/view/294/singularity From Ulam's obit.: > "One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue. https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1958-64-03/S0002-9904-1958-10189-5/S0002-9904-1958-10189-5.pdf https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1958-64-03/S0002-9904-1958...

nl 5y ago

Hmm.. The first to use the concept of a "singularity" in the technological context was John von Neumann.[4] Stanislaw Ulam reports a discussion with von Neumann "centered on the accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue but also The concept and the term "singularity" were popularized by Vernor Vinge in his 1993 essay The Coming Technological Singularity, in which he wrote that it would signal the end of the human era, as the new superintelligence would continue to upgrade itself and would advance technologically at an incomprehensible rate. both from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity (linked from the link you shared). I've never seen it attributed to von Neumann before, and it looks like Wikipeida has slowly increased the emphasis on it. In this earlier edit it says: > This quote has been several times taken out of context and attributed to von Neumann himself, likely due to von Neumann's widespread fame and influence. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technological_singularity&oldid=9707855#Early_conceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technological_sin... von Neumann wasn't credited until late 2004: See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technological_singularity&oldid=7660278#Early_conceptions_of_the_Singularity https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technological_sin...

carapace 5y ago
Here's Vinge on the subject: > 2001 V. Vinge in Locus Jan. 69/1 > In 1982, on a scientific panel, it occurred to me that with all these ideas I had been talking about and others had been talking about earlier, basically if we ever did get a human-equivalent intelligence, very soon things would be very different. Since the creative impetus would not be from us, it would be in some sense unknowable… This panel was the first time I used the term ‘technological singularity’. I did a 900-word piece about that in ’83 in Omni, and almost all my science fiction has been dealing with it. In ’92 or ’93, NASA asked me to come and give a talk on it, and I did an essay where I also tried to look at precursors. In John von Neumann’s obituary written by Stan Ulam, he relates a conversation he had with von Neumann in which he even uses the term ‘essential singularity’. To me, von Neumann’s notion was not quite the same thing. He was saying that technological progress would become so advanced that the situation would be unknowable—that much is like what I was saying. But to me, the fundamental reason for the technological singularity is, technology creates something that is smarter than human. https://sfdictionary.com/view/294/singularity https://sfdictionary.com/view/294/singularity From Ulam's obit.: > "One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue. https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1958-64-03/S0002-9904-1958-10189-5/S0002-9904-1958-10189-5.pdf https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1958-64-03/S0002-9904-1958...