[ExI] Singularity

[Aleksei Riikonen]

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 7:03 PM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I still believe that seeing the Singularity as an "event" taking place
> at a given time betrays a basic misunderstanding of the metaphor, ony
> too open to the sarcasm of people such as Carrico.
>
> If we go for the original meaning of "the point in the future where
> the predictive ability of our current forecast models and
> extrapolations obviously collapse", it would seem obvious that the
> singularity is more of the nature of an horizon, moving forward with
> the perspective of the observer, than of a punctual event.

You should be aware that for a long time, people have not used the
word "Singularity" only according to that so-called original use.
(Actually not the original, since e.g. John von Neumann talked of a
"singularity" much earlier.)

So it's not knowledgeable or appropriate of you to imply that that
would be what everyone has been talking about. Especially when
considering the cases where people have given explicit careful
definitions for what they are talking about.

http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/schools


> The Singularity as an incumbent rapture - or
> doom-to-be-avoided-by-listening-to-prophets, as it
> seems cooler to many to present it these days

Who's going for "listening to prophets"? Serious people like Nick
Bostrom and the SIAI present actual, concrete steps and measures that
need to be taken to minimize risks.

http://www.nickbostrom.com/fut/evolution.html
http://singinst.org/riskintro/index.html

-- 
Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei