Vernor Vinge

Vernor Vinge (born October 2, 1944) is a computer scientist and science fiction author, as well as a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics.

Sourced

The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

Presented at the VISION-21 Symposium sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, 30–31 March 1993.[1] Also retrievable from the NASA technical reports server as part of NASA CP-10129. A slightly changed version appeared in Whole Earth Review, Winter 1993.

• Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.

• The acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this century.

• We can solve many problems thousands of times faster than natural selection. Now, by creating the means to execute those simulations at much higher speeds, we are entering a regime as radically different from our human past as we humans are from the lower animals.

• I have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an inevitable consequence of the humans' natural competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology. And yet ... we are the initiators. Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things. We have the freedom to establish initial conditions, make things happen in ways that are less inimical than others. Of course (as with starting avalanches), it may not be clear what the right guiding nudge really is...

• The work that is truly productive is the domain of a steadily smaller and more elite fraction of humanity.

A Fire Upon the Deep (1992)

• How to explain? How to describe? Even the omniscient viewpoint quails.

• "Poor humans; they will all die." "Poor us; we will not."

• The hours came to minutes, the minutes to seconds. And now each second was as long as all the time before.

• It was not called the Net of a Million Lies for nothing.

• Hexapodia as the key insight.
  • I haven't had a chance to see the famous video from Straumli Realm, except as an evocation. (My only gateway onto the Net is very expensive.) Is it true that humans have six legs?

• If during the last thousand seconds you have received any High-Beyond-protocol packets from "Arbitration Arts," discard them at once. If they have been processed, then the processing site and all locally netted sites must be physically destroyed at once. We realize that this means the destruction of solar systems, but consider the alternative. You are under Transcendent attack.

• "Well, what do you know," Pham said. "Butterflies in jackboots."

A Deepness in the Sky (1999)

• So high, so low, so many things to know.

Rainbows End (2006)

• So much technology, so little talent.

See also

• John W. Campbell

External links

• Vernor Vinge on the Singularity
• Vernor Vinge at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database