New at Reason

May 4, 2007

From our May issue, reason contributing editor Mike Godwin talks science fiction, government, and the Singularity with Vernor Vinge.

Comments

|5.4.07 @ 12:43PM|#

Now that we've got a thread about the Singularity, can we start one about what it'll be like when Jesus comes?

Timothy|5.4.07 @ 12:47PM|#

That was from the April issue.

|5.4.07 @ 12:51PM|#

Now that we've got a thread about the Singularity, can we start one about what it'll be like when Jesus comes?

It is weird when people take sci-fi so seriously.

ron|5.4.07 @ 1:02PM|#

moore's law only referred to the amount of transistors that could be packed into the same physical space.

ron|5.4.07 @ 1:02PM|#

also its not really a "law" it was just a prediction that turned out to be mostly accurate.

SugarFree|5.4.07 @ 1:12PM|#

The only people worse than people who take science fiction too seriously are people who bitch about people who take science fiction too seriously. SF fans are thinking about and interested in the future. Christ, what a bunch of assholes.

When SF nerds ride bikes around town and ring my doorbell, when every hotel room has a copy of Snow Crash, when presidential candidates say being a SF nerd is required to run the country, then I'll entertain comparisons between The Rapture of the Nerds and Christian Apocalypse lust.

(Wow, somebody needs lunch and maybe a nap.)

|5.4.07 @ 1:20PM|#

SugarFree wins the thread.

|5.4.07 @ 1:29PM|#

"When SF nerds ride bikes around town and ring my doorbell, when every hotel room has a copy of Snow Crash, when presidential candidates say being a SF nerd is required to run the country, then I'll entertain comparisons between The Rapture of the Nerds and Christian Apocalypse lust."

So the difference is scale?

Chucklehead|5.4.07 @ 1:36PM|#

So the difference is scale?

Cultural influence, more like.

|5.4.07 @ 1:55PM|#

Probably been linked before, but no discussion of the singularity is complete without Gilbert and Sullivan:

I am the very model of a singularitarian

"Singularity, Woo Hoo!!!"

Lyrics here

|5.4.07 @ 1:56PM|#

Now that we've got a thread about the Singularity, can we start one about what it'll be like when Jesus comes?

It's the same thread. Jesus is bringing the final piece of the singularity puzzle.

|5.4.07 @ 2:22PM|#

Sugarfree,

I like sci-fi, a lot! I just think that some people are getting almost religious about this singularity thing.

(Geez, that "wins the thread" statement is so lame and boring.)

|5.4.07 @ 3:38PM|#

"...almost religious about this singularity thing."

Many sci-fi authors are often experts in at least one scientific field- their speculation is often realized. The singularity is a real world possibility- if you understand it and don't get a bit excited about it seems kind of weird. After all, the dreams of humankind through out history have been reflected in our various religions. With a singularity like event dreams could become reality- yep boring... yawn.

|5.4.07 @ 3:49PM|#

Yeah, I understand it. I just don't buy it. At least I don't agree that it'll happen anytime soon.

|5.4.07 @ 3:50PM|#

Also, I don't want it. It sounds shitty to me. I'd rather just have a cure for aging and natural death.

|5.4.07 @ 3:59PM|#

Give in to the Singularity!

Robert|5.4.07 @ 4:06PM|#

On one hand, I'm considering not re-upping my subscription because delivery has gotten so iffy. This is the first I'm seeing this interview.

On the other hand, this is so much less convenient than the print edition. I don't even feel like downloading, I'll just wait for the replacement issue. That's been almost 3 weeks too, so maybe I need to bug them again.

If they offered first class delivery, I wonder if that'd be cheaper or more reliable than getting a second print subscription.

|5.4.07 @ 4:15PM|#

Give in to the Singularity!

Never!!!!!!!

|5.4.07 @ 5:00PM|#

The Singularity dude came and spoke at Microsoft about a year ago (right when the book came out). He came across as an old fool who didn't understand history, and who clearly manipulated data to fit his preconcieved notions.

I went in anticipating an awesome glimps into the future, but all I got was a sad old man whose predictions have never come true.

SugarFree|5.4.07 @ 5:09PM|#

Ken and Bill,

I think the difference is scale. I don't deny that The Singularity has a religious air about it, and it is suspiciously "faithy" in certain iterations, but I wanted the things I've read about in science fiction my whole life and it's never slipped into the sort of dangerous delusion that religion is to many people. To dismiss SF fandom and futurism as such chaps my taint.

I did over-react, so I apologize. I was arguing with someone else in my head, and not you guys. (And I really was over-due for lunch and grouchy.)

And Bill... if you ever won a thread, you wouldn't feel that way. :-)

|5.4.07 @ 6:22PM|#

I just tied for winning the Lost thread, according to thoreau. I feel kind of dirty. ; )

|5.4.07 @ 6:48PM|#

Don't sweat it Sugarfree. If I had a quarter for every time I barked up a tree around here, I could buy us all a round. ...and let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Speakin' of stones, however, there do seem to be an awful lot of people in that glass house we're talkin' about who've thrown around their fair share. I won't back down from that.

...but if we're all gonna come clean, I suppose I should 'fess up too--I don't entirely object to the concept of faith. We take what we think we know and we speculate.

|5.4.07 @ 9:18PM|#

SugarFree,

Man is a creature of belief. If he does not believe in God, he will not believe in nothing, rather he will believe in anything.

It's kind of silly to speak of "delusional" religious people when you yourself get excited talking about something that is backed up by zero evidence.

|5.5.07 @ 5:12AM|#

"all I got was a sad old man whose predictions have never come true."

Like that one about a global information network, and using visual metaphors to represent data objects. Sheesh, what a loser idea that was.

SugarFree|5.5.07 @ 7:13AM|#

crimethink,

Um, I'm talking about science fiction. Of which I have a couple thousand published examples around the house. Nothing more. I no more believe in the Singularity than you worship Vishnu. The things I want from science fiction are flying cars and the internet and cell phones and nanoprobes crawling through my veins eating cholesterol and shitting MDMA.

And besides, it's pretty rich for you or any Christian to dismiss something for which there is zero evidence. Isn't there an abortion thread somewhere on the vast internet where you could be regurgitating the same specious arguments you always do?

Rip|5.7.07 @ 10:29AM|#

It would be nice if some of you could elaborate on why you "don't buy it" happening.

The only thing it comes down to is what will happen when intelligence, be that human or artificial, is able to recursively self improve. You don't have to "buy" anything. Once we are able to make ourselves smarter (brain to computer interfacing, implants, gene therapy, a conscious computer, whatever), then a more intelligent being will be able to improve itself again, and again, and again.

Who knows what will happen at that point? That's the Singularity.

Robert|5.7.07 @ 12:45PM|#

My replacement May issue arrived Friday.

|5.7.07 @ 3:49PM|#

"It would be nice if some of you could elaborate on why you "don't buy it" happening."

In short, and simplifying some, and based on more than just this interview- (1) proponents of the Singularity happening soon (30-50 years) assume that some type of what is known as "strong AI" will become available in that time period. (2) Having dealt with AI proponents and proposals for about 20 years, when you compare the AI field's claims and expectations with actual results, the idea of strong AI happening in 50 years elicits peals of derisive laughter.

More charitably, the reason we won't see strong AI and the singularity within 50 years (if ever) is the same reason that today we don't have fusion power plants and colonies on the Moon - because the problem is much, much harder than it first appeared.

Rip|5.7.07 @ 4:25PM|#

Almost all AI proponents are working on narrow AI applications, so of course they would never see them becoming strong AI; a program designed to catch a ball will never develop sentience without the ability to modify itself and its environment. And again, like I tried to point out, it doesn't have to be entirely software-based AI. The Singularity could arrive from something like genetically modified humans; humans modified to be smarter than we.

The important thing to stress is greater than human intelligence. Not the current state of narrow AI applications and those involved in software. Your view is rather limited if you are basing your analysis only on the laughter of narrow AI software engineers.

And remember, the mainstream scientific community believed that heavier than air flight was impossible in 1900. Just because other problems have turned out to be more difficult than originally suspected, doesn't preclude the advancement of other unrelated technologies.

|5.8.07 @ 3:14AM|#

ray_g,
I would like to point out that man has set foot on the moon so it is possible to start a permanent colony or city there if we had the resources. Technologically possible, economically costly and unnecessary. The Tokmak reactors are set to achieve more than 100% INPUT-OUTPUT power
within a few years, they are already at 80, 90%. We have small two seater planes and ultra-lites that can be used as flying cars if enough people learn flying and there was infrastructure to support it. My point is: technologically these things are all possible but economically dubious at this point in time. So why not the singularity??