I think Vernor Vinge meant a singularity in the mathematical sense. At least that was my interpretation of his paper. If each doubling or n-fold increase of progress takes half the time, then that's exactly what you get. We can't say it won't happen because a singularity is an event horizon on our view of the future. We aren't smart enough to look ahead more than one advance in intelligence, or else we could just skip to that step. Our understanding of physics could be wrong. Historically it always has been.
But I don't believe infinite progress will happen, and neither do a lot of people. So we co-opt the word singularity to mean something weaker. We did the same with AI, which is why we need a new term (AGI) to mean what AI originally meant. On Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 2:42 PM WriterOfMinds <jennifer.hane....@gmail.com> wrote: > "In either case, the numbers are finite, so there will be no singularity." > > Does the average person (or indeed any person) who uses the term > "singularity" genuinely expect that any physical quantity will go to > infinity? That was not my impression. I take "technological singularity" > as a metaphor that means a dramatic leap in capacity, beyond which life as > we now know it will be obsolete. Arguing against the singularity because > it can't literally be a mathematical singularity seems like a straw man. > *Artificial General Intelligence List <https://agi.topicbox.com/latest>* > / AGI / see discussions <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi> + > participants <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/members> + delivery > options <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription> Permalink > <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T65747f0622d5047f-M845c3a184c9e942a92ff0d1f> > ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T65747f0622d5047f-M463184d0a078d736804f9a73 Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
