[ExI] SF authors who write about the singularity

[Tom Nowell]

Stefano wrote "If we take the term too literally, it should be impossible by definition to tell a post-singularity story, "singularity" being defined as the region in time or space for which we cease being able to make coherent predictions..."

And this is why we should avoid confusing jargon. The singularity referred to by Kurzweil is the approach to infinity you get on a graph of 1/x, as x approaches 0. It is an exponentially increasing curve, used to represent exponentially increasing technological progress. Damien has used the term "The Spike" to represent the upwards spiking of a graph, and Charles Stross in his fiction uses the term "The acceleration".

Singularity can also refer to the mathematical state of a black hole, as gravity approaches infinity. This sort of singularity has an event horizon beyond which light cannot escape, and indeed is a region in time or space where we can't observe what happens.

If people keep getting confused by the terms used and start making inferences from similar terms, perhaps we should just call it The Really Steep Bit of the Technology Curve (with Important Capitalisation like all Important Ideas deserve).

Tom