Comments on: Singularity season – nerd rapture or inconvenient truth?

By: Al Fin

Al Fin — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:13:20 +0000

Who are the experts on the “singularity?” There are none because there is no clear agreed upon a definition of “the singularity”. Robin Hanson’s analogy using “historical singularities,” in the IEEE Spectrum issue, is a level headed overview for perspective. Vernor Vinge says the “singularity” may not happen, and gives several scenarios to illustrate why not.

When a field such as the “singularity”, climate studies, or any other nascent intellectual or scientific area lacks a clarity of focus, it is ripe for sceptics and infidels.

By: Grobstein

Grobstein — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:14:39 +0000

Most of Dvorsky’s post is hype. However, I think the substance is roughly this part:

Wow, sounds like Warren has some special knowledge of his own. I certainly hope that, aside from this vacuous and inflammatory post, that he’ll begin to share some of his expert views into AI theory and the potential for machine minds.

With the bold claim that there is “no evidence” to support the suggestion that SAI is engineerable, I’ll have to assume that he’s engaged the principle thinkers on the matter and offered sufficient critique to dismiss their findings outright — thinkers like Eliezer Yudkowsky, Ben Goertzel, Hugo de Garis, and the many others devoted to the problem.

Otherwise, why should we take Ellis seriously? Or are we expected to take his position on mere faith alone?

It’s mocking, but it makes a point: that Ellis, even faced with the considered views of experts, prefers to sidestep them; to attack without engaging their substance at all.

By: C.I. Coral

C.I. Coral — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:44:21 +0000

Dworsky’s “refutation” barely addresses Ellis other than to make the melodramatic “not dignifying you with a response” gambit. He spends fully three quarters of the rest of his post preaching to his choir on how to improve Singularity’s marketing image.

And with ideas such as “Let the critics have it and show them no quarter” he’s not doing his side any favors in making them appear as anything but pseudo-religious technological zealots.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:39:36 +0000

Yes, the Singularity predictions could very well be wrong. But that’s no reason to send the whole mess off to the religion compactor, where points are genealogized rather than argued, and claims are assumed to be too irrational to investigate.

The “nerd rapture” idea is bad because it’s used to avoid taking the ideas seriously. Dvorsky’s post makes this point very well (though not in the sensational portion quoted above).

By: Tom Marcinko

Tom Marcinko — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:21:49 +0000

It seems like an OK story premise, but in real life it sounds like a lot of other predictions that didn’t pan out, like bases on Mars by 1999, or small entrepreneurial groups wiping out the lumbering corporate dinosaurs, or maybe even the state withering away to be replaced by a dictatorship of the proletariat.

But just to be a complete weasel, never say never.