4 ms·

There was a time when a person could have the entirety of human knowledge on their bookshelf, but then Gutenberg came along and screwed that all up. Since then,

There was a time when a person could have the entirety of human knowledge on their bookshelf, but then Gutenberg came along and screwed that all up. Since then, even the most ambitious person has had to settle for less than complete knowledge. We rely on experts in their respective fields to make their knowledge palatable and useful for everyone else. Is the singularity the point where this ceases to become possible, or the point where we rely on the expertise of machines? The latter seems possible, at least, but I don't understand how the former is supposed to come about. People place a pretty high value on remaining naive, and there will probably always be a market for that.

bdr 17y ago
The Great Library was bigger than a single bookshelf, and pre-Gutenberg.
- prospero 17y ago
  Fair point. I was referring to the canonical works (i.e. everything by Plato, but not everything about Plato), and was thinking about the period just before Gutenberg. The available body of knowledge was pretty irregular before Gutenberg (the burning of the Great Library, etc.), but monotonically increased afterwards. My question stands, though: haven't we already hit our individual saturation point for knowledge? What is the Singularity, if not that?
  - randallsquared 17y ago
    One answer is that it's when we can increase the saturation point itself. To use your terms.
    - prospero 17y ago
      That seems like an inversion of how I've always seen it described. As far as I understand it, the Singularity is when the rate of advancement outstrips our ability to keep up. If we already can't keep up, but technology fixes that sometime in the future, I don't know if that's the same thing.
      - randallsquared 17y ago
        For decades now, the way to keep up has been to focus on an ever-narrowing field of knowledge. I don't think that's controversial. One description of the singularity is that it's when the maximum intelligence of an agent (human, computer, whatever) begins to significantly increase due to increasing computing power. If we're using that definition, then it fits with your "saturation point" description, since we'd be increasing the amount of information that an agent can handle. The "singularity" aspect is from the perspective of an unmodified human, not the upgraded agents themselves. But there are other definitions. :)

bdr 17y ago

The Great Library was bigger than a single bookshelf, and pre-Gutenberg.

prospero 17y ago
Fair point. I was referring to the canonical works (i.e. everything by Plato, but not everything about Plato), and was thinking about the period just before Gutenberg. The available body of knowledge was pretty irregular before Gutenberg (the burning of the Great Library, etc.), but monotonically increased afterwards. My question stands, though: haven't we already hit our individual saturation point for knowledge? What is the Singularity, if not that?
- randallsquared 17y ago
  One answer is that it's when we can increase the saturation point itself. To use your terms.
  - prospero 17y ago
    That seems like an inversion of how I've always seen it described. As far as I understand it, the Singularity is when the rate of advancement outstrips our ability to keep up. If we already can't keep up, but technology fixes that sometime in the future, I don't know if that's the same thing.
    - randallsquared 17y ago
      For decades now, the way to keep up has been to focus on an ever-narrowing field of knowledge. I don't think that's controversial. One description of the singularity is that it's when the maximum intelligence of an agent (human, computer, whatever) begins to significantly increase due to increasing computing power. If we're using that definition, then it fits with your "saturation point" description, since we'd be increasing the amount of information that an agent can handle. The "singularity" aspect is from the perspective of an unmodified human, not the upgraded agents themselves. But there are other definitions. :)