5 ms·
Please add "(1993)" to the title. [DONE] The OP was written by Vernor Vinge, the mathematician/computer-scientist-turned-science-fiction-writer who first popul
by cs702 4y ago
Please add "(1993)" to the title. [DONE]
The OP was written by Vernor Vinge, the mathematician/computer-scientist-turned-science-fiction-writer who first popularized the term "singularity."[a]
Abstract: "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, human era will be ended. Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers (and some further dangers) are presented."
As you read the rest, keep in mind that Vinge wrote it 30 years ago, well before large AI models like GPT-4 were even remotely possible.
Along the same vein, I'd also recommend reading Hans Moravec's books, "Mind Children" (1988) and "Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind" (1998). Looking at those books with the benefit of hindsight, Moravec was right about a lot of things.
[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_Vinge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_Vinge
- icepat 4y agoThis is an important addendum, since the poster is also in here using the same language as the article. I mistakenly concluded they had written this at first.
- novaRom 4y agoQuote: I'll be surprised if this event occurs before 2005 or after 2030 Actually, my initial thought was this text generated by a LLM pretending it's from 1993
- olddustytrail 4y agoSomeone should ask ChatGPT to summerize it. It might give away its plans!
- rnk 4y agoHis book "a fire upon the deep" is one of the most brilliant things I've ever read. There's the singularity, a story about an AI that reboots itself from cold storage, a brilliant idea of life forms with a collective brain basically. Interplanetary Usenet! I command everyone to read it.
- cs702 4y agoThanks for the suggestion. I've added it to my reading list!
- edfletcher_t137 4y agoThis whole series is one of the best of that era, I don't understand why it is lauded more often. Vinge clearly has a mind for the future like none other. His "computer programmer-archeologist" idea has lived rent-free in my head since I first read A Fire Upon the Deep decades ago. And the zones of thought? Literally mind-bending. "Came here to say this". :)
- hinkley 4y agoHe earned two Hugo's and got 2 Nebula nominations for the first two books.
- etrautmann 4y agoDeepness and Fire are both lauded plenty! They’re incredible books but always in the top recs for sci fi reading.
- hoseja 4y agoDidn't like zones of thought personally, a very fantasy concept.
- rnk 4y agoThe idea we could be living in the slow, idiot part of the galaxy is so fantastic
- arethuza 4y agoI don't think there is any suggestion that the Slow Zone actually limits human intelligence - for example the human characters in Deepness in the Sky didn't all become super-intelligent because they entered a artificial bubble of the Transcend. Of course, when they descend into the Unthinking Depths there are problems.
- 4y ago
- Teever 4y agoI'm glad someone else mentioned Moravec. When I first encountered ideas like transhumanism and the singularity as a teen I started exploring these topics at my local library. Even in my youth I was mildly skeptical but still cautiously optimistic that the ideas in these books would come to pass. I became very jaded with the state of technology when FAANG companies took over everything and computing devices became these locked down and addicting little glow boxes that push socially division and advertisements for crypto scams into everyone's mind and I became doubtful that these wondrous ideas would ever come to pass. For the first time in a long while I'm less jaded about those prospects. While I'm still skeptical I'm once again cautiously optimistic at the potential with technologies like LLMs and machines like Starship. Maybe I actually will get to live to see those crazy fractal trees that Moravec described.
- FartyMcFarter 4y agoThis short essay by Moravec is great: https://frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1992/CyberPigs.html https://frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles...
- cs702 4y agoThank you. I'll take a look. BTW, your username made me chuckle. Inspired by Boaty McBoatface, I assume?
- FartyMcFarter 4y agoYep :)
- majormajor 4y agoWhat's interesting timing-wise is that by 1999 he published a far-future SF book, A Deepness In the Sky, where that sort of super-AI was a "failed dream"... Maybe the hype had slowed down? But 30 years later it seems potentially realistic again.
- arethuza 4y agoIt's a failed dream for humans - of course anyone who has read AFutD knows that there are plenty of superintelligences in the galaxy - but that they aren't possible where the human society of the Qeng Ho operate. OK You could probably transcend at On Off star - but that's exceptional.
- majormajor 4y agoSure, in-universe that's the explanation, but it's interesting that his 1993 public prediction and 1992 and 1999 novels diverged on that point.
- _yb2s 4y agoThat book is in the Fire Upon the Deep universe, and takes place post singularity! It’s just that in his universe, there are regions of space where the laws of physics make AI impossible, and those are the only regions where biological life forms haven’t been already wiped out.
- colordrops 4y agoMy memory could be failing me, but I was reading about the singularity in Omni magazine in grade school, and I graduated in 1992.