Michael Anissimov on the Singularity

By | October 31, 2007
3 Comments

In addition to providing Michael’s fascinating insights into the meaning of the term “singularity” and reflections on the risks involved, this video captures a little of the atmosphere at the Singularity Summit 2007 opening reception. It was, as you can see, a beautiful setting. The music was playing, the wine was flowing, and everybody was talking Singularity. A little glimpse of heaven!

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Stephen Gordon

    Michael obviously agrees with Eliezer Yudkowsky that our understanding of what the Singularity could be has devolved as a result of differnt ideas all being described by the one term – Singularity.

    I think there is room for debate on the issue.

    Maybe this is something that should come up in the next FFR show.

  • http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/ M. Simon

    Vapid.

    Or in the vernacular: lame.

    The Singularity is the harmonic convergence of our age. Fun to talk about, wonderful to imagine, totally devoid of content.

  • Phil Bowermaster

    No, there’s plenty of content. The Harmonic Convergence was sheer mysticism. Some Singularity talk veers over into those directions, but certainly nothing coming from Michael or from the Singularity Institute. You are of course free to disagree with the conclusions, but they are based on trends in science and technology. Even if you don’t like the Singularity formulation, it’s hard to argue with the facts that technology brings about real change and that it’s very likely that increases in computing power will bring about even more and bigger changes at a societal level than anything we’ve seen to date.