Researchers Dispute Redefinitions of the Singularity
David Pfau and François Chollet respond to claims that the singularity has arrived.
David Pfau criticizes tech professionals for redefining the singularity as any sharp uptick in firm creation or capital activity. He references the novel A Fire Upon the Deep and urges reading Vinge and Kurzweil for the original concept. François Chollet states that if a human can make sense of events that afternoon, the singularity is not here by definition. The replies address posts asserting the singularity has arrived amid recent developments.
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Researchers Dispute Redefinitions of the Singularity
David Pfau and François Chollet respond to claims that the singularity has arrived.
David Pfau criticizes tech professionals for redefining the singularity as any sharp uptick in firm creation or capital activity. He references the novel A Fire Upon the Deep and urges reading Vinge and Kurzweil for the original concept. François Chollet states that if a human can make sense of events that afternoon, the singularity is not here by definition. The replies address posts asserting the singularity has arrived amid recent developments.
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"The Singularity is here" -- if I, a mere human, can make sense of what happens this afternoon, then by definition no, the Singularity is not here.
Who can forget that heart-stopping moment in A Fire Upon the Deep when there was a steep uptick in firm creation?
I guess if people are going to toss around "the Singularity" so freaking casually (Stripe/Open Router and/or every other day some rando on this platform), we might as well re-read the original 1993 Vinge essay on the whole thing:
"But if the technological Singularity can happen, it will. "Even if all the governments of the world were to understand the 'threat' and be in deadly fear of it, progress toward the goal would continue. In fiction, there have been stories of laws passed forbidding the…