[ExI] The Singularity is No Longer Always 30 Years Away

[Lee Corbin]

I had written

> > It's well to remember that 2012 is as close to us as 2002 was.  
> > I don't expect anything significantly more radical 
> > to happen in the next five years than in the past five.

and Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns was brought up,
and rightfully so. Indeed, I spent $200 to get a copy of TSIN
ahead of time (through SingInst). But as Eugen says, five years
doesn't exhibit much exponential appearing growth, and 2012
is only about 4.5 years away.

The Kurzweil graphs are amazing, and rather inarguable. But one
of the most amazing things to me was that the date K gave for the
singularity was the most reasonable I'd heard since 1983!

In 1983 Chip Morningstar was telling Drexler and many people 
here in Silicon Valley that not only was the singularity (though the
word was not in use yet) 30 years away, but he even provided
an exact date:   February 13, 2013.  Naturally, this was a bit
tongue in cheek, but I attended many "pre-Singularity" parties
hosted by Roger Gregory and Naomi Reynolds in the late 80's
and early 90's.

In 1989 or 1990, Drexler asked all of us in Foresight (or at least
down to the Colleague level) when we thought (a) a nanotech
assembler would be produced, and (b) when successful reanimation
or the singularity (I forget which, they're almost certainly coincident)
would occur.  I answered 2050 for the assembler, and 2061 for the
singularity.  I also wrote a short story in 1990 or 91 published in 
Lifequest where I make the 2061 date quite explicit.

But by 1993, I noticed that the singularity was still 30 years away in
most people's minds, and in 2003 it was still 30 years away, and I
was about to pronounce a new Law "the Singularity is always 30
years away", but that would have been overly cynical and besides,
it was obvious that other people were thinking the same thing.
http://www.coolscifi.com/forums/rec-arts-sf-written/what-will-like-50-years-now-39266/index5.html
is what Google returns on "singularity is always 30".

But then 2005 came along!  And now, the singularity was 40 years away!
(in Kurzweil's book).  That's what I call progress!  They're getting closer
to my 2061.

Lee