[extropy-chat] the "singularity" word

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Imagine that next week they announce a new phone system/devices, based
on a combination of wi-fi, umts and satphones, with sufficient
bandwidth for high quality real time video/audio streams, and a price
sufficiently low to be affordable by all those who can afford a mobile
phone now. Result: instant video communications with a large subset of
humankind.
What does it liik like to us? More of the same: we are prepared to these things.
What would it look like to people two or three generations ago? A
singularity: something that radically changes the texture of everyday
life.
Analogously, imagine that in a few decades they announce a cheap
genetic mod to equip all newborns with implants to decode/encode
thoughts and push/pull encoded/decoded thoughts to/from the global
net. In other words, instant telepathy for all people. Looks like a
singularity to us but *they* will be prepared since they will have
seen already other advances in this direction. So probably it will
look like more of the same to them.
G.


On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 15:32:26 -0700, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at gmail.com> wrote:
> I very much doubt that a singularity will look like "more of the
> same".  It would not be a singularity if so.  There is ample reason to
> believe we are soon to face a very real singularity that will very
> much not look like more of the same.  Mere rapidity of change is not
> all that is being called "singularity".    But there are limits in
> even the mere rapidity of change that are beyond what we finite beings
> can cope with or comprehend.    One does not have to like it to see
> that it is on the way.
> 
> - s