rapture of the nerds
In plain wordsA mocking nickname for the 'technological singularity', comparing the belief that superintelligent AI will transform the world to the religious idea of the Rapture.
A derisive or wry nickname for the technological singularitytechnological singularity, n.: A moment some people expect in the future when technology, usually AI smarter than us, starts changing the world so fast and so deeply that we cannot see past it., likening expectations of a sudden AI-driven transformation — superintelligencesuperintelligence, n.: A mind, usually imagined as an AI, that would leave even the cleverest people far behind in nearly every kind of thinking, not just in one game or skill. None is known to exist., mind uploading, the end of scarcity and death — to the evangelical Christian belief in the Rapture, in which the faithful are taken up to heaven. The phrase compresses a long-running critique that singularitarian and some AGI discourse reproduces religious structures: an imminent transcendence, predicted dates, prophets, an elect who understand, and salvation or damnation. Skeptics use it as a put-down; science-fiction writers and some enthusiasts use it affectionately.
To her the timelines debate is the rapture of the nerds with better spreadsheets.
Origin
Usually traced to the Scottish science-fiction writer Ken MacLeod, whose novel The Cassini Division (1998) mocks the Singularity in these terms; MacLeod himself denies coining the phrase, and its first use is not established. It was widely quoted in discussions of Vernor Vinge's and Ray Kurzweil's singularity ideas and became the title of a 2012 novel by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross.
Usage note
Critics in the TESCREALTESCREAL, abbr.: A critical label for a cluster of related belief systems, including transhumanism, effective altruism and longtermism, that its coiners say drive the push to build AGI and share roots with eugenics. debate make a related comparison more formally; singularitarians reply that their predictions rest on technological trends rather than revelation.
Related
- technological singularitytechnological singularity, n.: A moment some people expect in the future when technology, usually AI smarter than us, starts changing the world so fast and so deeply that we cannot see past it.
- superintelligencesuperintelligence, n.: A mind, usually imagined as an AI, that would leave even the cleverest people far behind in nearly every kind of thinking, not just in one game or skill. None is known to exist.
- feel the AGIfeel the AGI, phr.: An AI-industry catchphrase meaning to grasp, emotionally as well as intellectually, that human-level AI may be arriving soon; it began as a chant inside OpenAI.
- TESCREALTESCREAL, abbr.: A critical label for a cluster of related belief systems, including transhumanism, effective altruism and longtermism, that its coiners say drive the push to build AGI and share roots with eugenics.
- Ray KurzweilRay Kurzweil, prop. n.: An American inventor of reading machines and speech technology who became the best-known prophet of the 'singularity', predicting human-level AI by 2029.
- AI timelinesAI timelines, n.: Forecasts of when AI will reach major milestones, such as matching humans at most work. People with short timelines expect this within years; others expect decades, or never.