[extropy-chat] Harv's Explanation for Slow Progress

[Hal Finney]

Harvey wrote:

> I would also like to ask:
> Why no singularity 10 years after somebody predicted it on this list?
> Why no AI?  Why no uploading?  Why no robots doing our laundry?  Why no
> flying cars?  Why no space colonies?  Why no immortality pills?
>
> Many predictions have been made in this forum ten years ago.  I am not sure
> that any of the big predictions have actually come true.  Why are the
> expected technological breakthroughs not occurring as fast as predicted?

Hal replied:

: I question whether anyone on this list made those predictions.
: Who predicted the Singularity by 2003?  I remember Eliezer saying 2008,
: and Dan Clemmensen is apparently sticking to 2006.  Likewise, did anyone
: expect AI, uploading, or laundry robots by today's date?

Harvey replied:

> Unless you are seriously arguing for the singularity within the next 2
> or 5 years, you are not refuting my point.

Hal now writes:

I am trying to improve the historical accuracy of the discussion.  I still
don't think that most of the items in the list were in fact predicted
in the way you describe, and we should not leave readers the impression
that Extropians believed those things.  Your original language can even
be read to claim that we are now ten years after the predicted date of
the Singularity, an obvious absurdity.  So I interpreted it to say, in
effect, that ten years ago someone predicted a Singularity by today.
Perhaps what you meant was, "ten years ago some people on the list
predicted a Singularity within a few years from now, and yet we don't
seem particularly close to achieving it."

Even for those who predicted a Singularity within this decade, I don't
think there was any consensus of support.  Rather, those claims were often
criticized as premature.  My personal archives include a disagreement
I had with Eliezer back in 1997 about the 2008 date (which he may have
meant tongue in cheek).

Many of the other items on the list, flying cars and space colonies and
laundry robots, have never been a central part of Extropian thought and
there was certainly never a consensus belief among Extropians that we
would see these events only ten years in the future.

As a data point, Greg Burch has very courageously left up his
predictions from 1998 for the next 17 years (now 12 years) at
http://users.aol.com/gburch2/scnrio1.html.

Hal