Fifteen years ago, I spent an hour with the man who gave us the word.
Vernor Vinge coined “technological singularity.” In his 1993 paper for NASA, he put a clock on it: within thirty years we would have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, he wrote, the human era would end.
That deadline came and went. Vinge died in March 2024, past his own due date, which means he never got to grade his own paper. The rest of us are holding the pencil now.
The title of our conversation was his line, not mine:
We can surpass the wildest dreams of optimism.
From most people, that would be marketing. From a hard #ScienceFiction writer who spent thirty years teaching math and computer science, it was a hypothesis with conditions attached, and he was just as specific about what happens when the conditions are not met.
He walked me through the milestones on the way, and through our odds of surviving the thing he named.
Listen, then decide how much of today’s #AI conversation is actually new, and how much is his vocabulary with better funding.
Want to hear Vernor Vinge discussing his early life, the technological singularity and his latest science fiction novel? Check out his interview for www.SingularityWeblog.com