Re: Singularity skeptics

From: Aleksei Riikonen (aleksei@iki.fi)
Date: Thu May 11 2006 - 16:21:44 MDT


On 5/12/06, Joshua Fox <joshua@joshuafox.com> wrote:
> SL4 Members: Who would you list as the top "Singularity skeptics"?
>
> Though Stanford seems to define "Singularity skeptic" as someone who thinks that we
> should actively try to slow technological acceleration, I'm actually interested in learning
> of the top thinkers whose opinion you respect but who have argued that anything like a
> Singularity is very unlikely.

If what we mean by the word Singularity is the creation of
smarter-than-human intelligence, then I'd say that no-one who argues
that such an event is very unlikely can possibly be a top thinker :P
(Unless s/he is very poorly informed of a number of topics, or lying
about his/her real assessment of the situation for political reasons.)

It would *almost* be possible for a top thinker to assign a negligible
probability for the Singularity because of being convinced that an
existential risk will manifest before we'll get that far, but I think
our situation is still short of being hopeless enough. I hope it
remains so...

-- 
Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei


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