Vernor Vinge
In plain wordsAn American science-fiction author and mathematics professor who popularized the 'technological singularity': a coming point when smarter-than-human minds change the world so fast that no one can foresee what follows.
American science-fiction writer, and for many years a teacher of mathematics and computer science at San Diego State University, who gave 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. its modern meaning. Extending I. J. GoodI. J. Good, prop. n.: A British statistician who broke codes with Alan Turing and in 1965 argued that a machine smarter than us could design still smarter machines, setting off an 'intelligence explosion'.'s intelligence explosionintelligence explosion, n.: The idea that once AI gets good enough at improving AI, each smarter version could build a smarter one faster still, so abilities would snowball far beyond human level in a short time., he wrote in a 1983 Omni magazine article, and argued at length in 'The Coming Technological Singularity', an essay presented at a NASA symposium in 1993, that once superhuman intelligencesuperintelligence, 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. existed — whether reached through AI, computer networks, human–computer interfaces or biological enhancement — events would outrun human understanding, closing the era in which humans steer history and leaving the world beyond that point impossible to foresee; he put the date between 2005 and 2030. His novella 'True Names' (1981) was an early depiction of cyberspace, and three of his novels won the Hugo Award, beginning with 'A Fire Upon the Deep' (1992). His essay shaped the views of later singularity writers, including 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. and Eliezer YudkowskyEliezer Yudkowsky, prop. n.: An American writer and AI theorist who, from around 2000, argued that superhuman AI would likely destroy humanity unless its goals were made safe, and who founded an online community devoted to rational thinking..
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.
- intelligence explosionintelligence explosion, n.: The idea that once AI gets good enough at improving AI, each smarter version could build a smarter one faster still, so abilities would snowball far beyond human level in a short time.
- 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.
- I. J. GoodI. J. Good, prop. n.: A British statistician who broke codes with Alan Turing and in 1965 argued that a machine smarter than us could design still smarter machines, setting off an 'intelligence explosion'.
- 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.
Sources
- Vinge, V. (1993). The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era. In VISION-21 Symposium, NASA Conference Publication 10129.
Mentioned in
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., 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.