From: doug@OpenMind.com (Doug Cutrell)
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 94 10:41:38 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Singularity... what is it?
Message-ID: <1B22E296546@BlueSky.OpenMind.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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>Jeff Gostin says:

> What _is_ Singularity? It's not a term I'm familiar with.

Perry Metzger replies:

>The notion that the rate of progress is increasing, and the increase
>in the rate is also increasing, so at some point in the next century
>more change will occur per hour than occurred in all of human history
>to, say, now. "The Singularity" is the point at which the world
>becomes not merely odd but incomprehensable TO US. Presumably those
>alive at the time will not really notice.

This is not the only possible definition -- I wrote a paper in '84 defining
it as a singular event or change beyond which "all bets are off".  No
future events after that point can really be reasonably predicted on this
side of it.  For example, the sudden development of a "god-like" AI.  Or
the discovery of some medical treatment which increases human intelligence
two-fold... which is cheap and is widely distributed to everyone.

Not all of the possible singularities are good... I would call global
thermonuclear war a singularity, or the rise of a virus like AIDS, that
spreads like the common cold.

Sorry, this is getting pretty far away from subjects relevant to
cypherpunks.  The Extropian's list has been having a discussion recently
about the "singularity" of runaway AI development acceleration.  That list
is probably the appropriate place to look for more info...

Doug


___________________________________________________________________
Doug Cutrell                    General Partner
doug@OpenMind.com               Open Mind
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