[ExI] biggest insights on the singularity

[BillK]

On Sun, 1 Mar 2026 at 19:11, spike jones via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> Over the past three decades I have been hanging out on this forum, we have discussed many interesting things, such as the singularity.  After all this time, all these years pondering the many aspects of it, after reading Kurzweil’s books, Eliezer’s posts, the other singularity thinkers, I don’t feel like we have that much better insights into the singularity than the faceless masses.
>
> I like having any prediction as clearly definable, so that we can make bets on it.  One such example would be when will the singularity occur.  But… we don’t really know when to mark that date.  One could reasonably argue that the singularity doesn’t happen in one day or even necessarily one year, but it will happen.  If so, we can reasonably argue that it is happening now, and started in about November 2022 when ChatGPT showed up without warning.  Then all the stuff we are struggling with now is completely foreseeable: AI in weapons, AI enabling illegal mass surveillance, etc.  But we still can’t really determine when it started and when to mark the ending (assuming the singularity doesn’t end with the complete destruction of mankind.)
>
> It isn’t clear to me we have much to show for over three decades of pondering the singularity.
>
> spike
> _______________________________________________


We can't predict what will happen when the AGI Singularity arrives.
The big advantage of the Exi list is that it enabled the discussion of
many different scenarios.
Will it be a hard or soft Singularity?
How will it affect society and governments?
Will humans be kept as AGI pets or will AGI kill off humanity?
Books have been written about it.
But it is pointless to make bets about such a cataclysmic event in
human history.
Would you make a bet on when you would die? You'd never be around to
collect your winnings.  :)

BillK