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I wish this pseudo-technical, new-age, flim-flam of an idea would die already. Seriously, does anyone with a real technical background that is not directly mak

I wish this pseudo-technical, new-age, flim-flam of an idea would die already. Seriously, does anyone with a real technical background that is not directly making money off of seminars, books and articles selling this believe this stuff?

JeremyChase 17y ago
No doubt. It isn't the first singularity movie anyway; Terminator, Matrix, Eagle Eye, A Space Odyssey..
- zephjc 17y ago
  I wouldn't call those singularity movies. Maybe movies with transhuman/posthuman themes, but the singularity implies things about the rate of technological progress - certainly there wasn't much rapid progress in Terminator after the machines nuked the earth (except, maybe, in the production of new terminator robots, but even that wasn't fast, really).
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    Eagle Eye was a singularity movie in potential, but in essence it was no different than War Games in that it was about a rampant AI with no progression beyond. I, Robot had a far greater display of the advance of technology than virtually any Sci-Fi movie (except maybe the bicentennial man) and only displayed ~3 generations of robots (the replaced, the being replaced and the new) but is in no sense a singularity movie. I doubt we'll ever see a movie truly depict the singularity in any way other than a glimpse and will be akin to virtually any sci-fi movie in any setting. We might get there with a great TV series, but that's doubtful. IMO a singularity TV series would have to take the story progression of Taken in the generation skipping, but instead of giant leaps, it would be a leap of decades, years and then months as technology advances up to the '2030' mark. For movies we'll be stuck with a BS intro that pails in comparison to the introduction of each Fallout game but will inevitably be describing similar events.
- Retric 17y ago
  None of those present god (little g) level AI being created by humans but, AI (2001) is fairly close to the idea. By the end of the movie the robots knew how to bring someone back from the dead for a day and who knows what else.
hegemonicon 17y ago
Eliezer Yudkowsky.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
listic 17y ago
> does anyone with a real technical background... this believe this stuff? Why not?
- Retric 17y ago
  There are a large number of assumptions built up around the singularity concept and CPU's are not getting exponentially faster so at least one of them seems incorrect. Honestly, the hardest problem IMO is the idea that intelligence is fungible and twice as much of it will provide anywhere near twice the result. The real world is fuzzy and thinking faster/deeper only get’s you so far. Let's say we can build a machine smarter than a single person, that’s a long way from building something smarter than humanity so there is not a quick kick off to infinity. Now let's suggest we build a billion of the things and they are all smarter than the average person. Nothing says you can get anything close to a linear feedback between the intelligence designing an AI and how smart the AI is so there would not necessarily be a feedback loop to keep making more intelligent systems. etc.
  - pmsaue0 17y ago
    not to mention resource/energy limitations
  - Inufu 17y ago
    You do know Moore's law, don't you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law Aside from that, the difference between one human and all of us is only 2^32 - so if you can place the intelligence of one human on a chip, you'll be able to do the same thing with all of humanity 64 years later. And that's ignoring things like reduced costs per chip / using multiple chips for the same price.
    - clavalle 17y ago
      You do know that it is not a Law, right? It should be called, Moore's Rule of Thumb.
  - troystribling 17y ago
ivankirigin 17y ago
I have a graduate degree in robotics, and I think that robots will be as capable as humans within a few decades. I also think it is likely we can engineer a solution to aging, but I'm not as familiar with the tech there.
jodrellblank 17y ago
Define "this stuff" - what, specifically, are you snorting at people believing?
- clavalle 17y ago
  'this stuff' := The Singularity - The idea that we will be able to design systems with enough 'intelligence' (a difficult term to define itself) as to be imbued with novel creativity that surpasses all human understanding...in turn, these systems create ever more advanced creative systems until (insert your dis/utopian idea of preference here).
  - wlievens 17y ago
    Especially the part where they say it all happens in ~30 years from now. Eh?

JeremyChase 17y ago

No doubt. It isn't the first singularity movie anyway; Terminator, Matrix, Eagle Eye, A Space Odyssey..

zephjc 17y ago
I wouldn't call those singularity movies. Maybe movies with transhuman/posthuman themes, but the singularity implies things about the rate of technological progress - certainly there wasn't much rapid progress in Terminator after the machines nuked the earth (except, maybe, in the production of new terminator robots, but even that wasn't fast, really).
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  Eagle Eye was a singularity movie in potential, but in essence it was no different than War Games in that it was about a rampant AI with no progression beyond. I, Robot had a far greater display of the advance of technology than virtually any Sci-Fi movie (except maybe the bicentennial man) and only displayed ~3 generations of robots (the replaced, the being replaced and the new) but is in no sense a singularity movie. I doubt we'll ever see a movie truly depict the singularity in any way other than a glimpse and will be akin to virtually any sci-fi movie in any setting. We might get there with a great TV series, but that's doubtful. IMO a singularity TV series would have to take the story progression of Taken in the generation skipping, but instead of giant leaps, it would be a leap of decades, years and then months as technology advances up to the '2030' mark. For movies we'll be stuck with a BS intro that pails in comparison to the introduction of each Fallout game but will inevitably be describing similar events.
Retric 17y ago
None of those present god (little g) level AI being created by humans but, AI (2001) is fairly close to the idea. By the end of the movie the robots knew how to bring someone back from the dead for a day and who knows what else.

hegemonicon 17y ago

Eliezer Yudkowsky.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

listic 17y ago

> does anyone with a real technical background... this believe this stuff? Why not?

Retric 17y ago
There are a large number of assumptions built up around the singularity concept and CPU's are not getting exponentially faster so at least one of them seems incorrect. Honestly, the hardest problem IMO is the idea that intelligence is fungible and twice as much of it will provide anywhere near twice the result. The real world is fuzzy and thinking faster/deeper only get’s you so far. Let's say we can build a machine smarter than a single person, that’s a long way from building something smarter than humanity so there is not a quick kick off to infinity. Now let's suggest we build a billion of the things and they are all smarter than the average person. Nothing says you can get anything close to a linear feedback between the intelligence designing an AI and how smart the AI is so there would not necessarily be a feedback loop to keep making more intelligent systems. etc.
- pmsaue0 17y ago
  not to mention resource/energy limitations
- Inufu 17y ago
  You do know Moore's law, don't you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law Aside from that, the difference between one human and all of us is only 2^32 - so if you can place the intelligence of one human on a chip, you'll be able to do the same thing with all of humanity 64 years later. And that's ignoring things like reduced costs per chip / using multiple chips for the same price.
  - clavalle 17y ago
    You do know that it is not a Law, right? It should be called, Moore's Rule of Thumb.
- troystribling 17y ago

ivankirigin 17y ago

I have a graduate degree in robotics, and I think that robots will be as capable as humans within a few decades. I also think it is likely we can engineer a solution to aging, but I'm not as familiar with the tech there.

jodrellblank 17y ago

Define "this stuff" - what, specifically, are you snorting at people believing?

clavalle 17y ago
'this stuff' := The Singularity - The idea that we will be able to design systems with enough 'intelligence' (a difficult term to define itself) as to be imbued with novel creativity that surpasses all human understanding...in turn, these systems create ever more advanced creative systems until (insert your dis/utopian idea of preference here).
- wlievens 17y ago
  Especially the part where they say it all happens in ~30 years from now. Eh?