<story><title>AI’s big rift is like a religious schism</title><url>https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-singularity-is-nigh-republished</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mcv</author><text>The thing I never understood is: why would it go vertical? It would at best be an exponential curve, and I have doubts about that.&lt;p&gt;I admit looking at the 100 years before 1993, it looks like innovation is constantly speeding up, but even then there&amp;#x27;s not going to be a moment that we suddenly have infinite knowledge. There&amp;#x27;s no such thing as infinite knowledge; it&amp;#x27;s still bound by physical limits. It still takes time and resources to actually do something with it.&lt;p&gt;And if you look at the past 30 years, it doesn&amp;#x27;t really look like innovation is speeding up at all. There is plenty of innovation, but is it happening at an ever faster pace? I don&amp;#x27;t see it. Not to mention that much of it is hype and fashion, and not really fundamentally new. Even AI progress is driven mostly by faster hardware and more data, and not really fundamentally new technologies.&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s not even getting into the science crisis: lots of science is not really reproducible. And while LLMs are certainly an exciting new technology, it&amp;#x27;s not at all clear that they&amp;#x27;re really more than a glorified autocorrect.&lt;p&gt;So I&amp;#x27;m extremely skeptical about those singularity ideas. It&amp;#x27;s an exciting SciFi idea, but I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s true. And certainly not within the next 30 years.</text></item><item><author>gumby</author><text>The reference to the origin of the concept of a singularity was better than most, but still misunderstood it:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; In 1993 Vernor Vinge drew on computer science and his fellow science-fiction writers to argue that ordinary human history was drawing to a close. We would surely create superhuman intelligence sometime within the next three decades, leading to a “Singularity”, in which AI would start feeding on itself.&lt;p&gt;Yes it was Vernor, but he said something much more interesting: that as the speed of innovation itself sped up (the derivative of acceleration) the curve could bend up until it became essentially vertical, literally a singularity in the curve.  And then things on the other side of that singularity would be incomprehensible to those of us on our side of it. This is reflected in Peace and Fire upon the deep and other of his novels going back before the essay.&lt;p&gt;You can see in this idea is itself rooted in ideas from Alvin Toffler in the 70s (Future Shock) and Ray Lafferty in the 60s (e.g. Slow Tuesday Night).&lt;p&gt;So AI machines were just part of the enabling phenomena -- the most important, and yes the center of his &amp;#x27;93 essay.  But the core of the metaphor was broader than that.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a little disappointed that The Economist, of all publications, didn&amp;#x27;t get ths quite right, but in their defense, it was a bit tangental to the point of the essay.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>AngaraliTurk</author><text>&amp;gt; And while LLMs are certainly an exciting new technology, it&amp;#x27;s not at all clear that they&amp;#x27;re really more than a glorified autocorrect.&lt;p&gt;Are we sure things like biology, or heck, even the universe as a whole and its parts, aren&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;glorified x thing&amp;quot;? Can&amp;#x27;t we apply this argument to just about anything?</text></comment>
<story><title>AI’s big rift is like a religious schism</title><url>https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-singularity-is-nigh-republished</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mcv</author><text>The thing I never understood is: why would it go vertical? It would at best be an exponential curve, and I have doubts about that.&lt;p&gt;I admit looking at the 100 years before 1993, it looks like innovation is constantly speeding up, but even then there&amp;#x27;s not going to be a moment that we suddenly have infinite knowledge. There&amp;#x27;s no such thing as infinite knowledge; it&amp;#x27;s still bound by physical limits. It still takes time and resources to actually do something with it.&lt;p&gt;And if you look at the past 30 years, it doesn&amp;#x27;t really look like innovation is speeding up at all. There is plenty of innovation, but is it happening at an ever faster pace? I don&amp;#x27;t see it. Not to mention that much of it is hype and fashion, and not really fundamentally new. Even AI progress is driven mostly by faster hardware and more data, and not really fundamentally new technologies.&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s not even getting into the science crisis: lots of science is not really reproducible. And while LLMs are certainly an exciting new technology, it&amp;#x27;s not at all clear that they&amp;#x27;re really more than a glorified autocorrect.&lt;p&gt;So I&amp;#x27;m extremely skeptical about those singularity ideas. It&amp;#x27;s an exciting SciFi idea, but I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s true. And certainly not within the next 30 years.</text></item><item><author>gumby</author><text>The reference to the origin of the concept of a singularity was better than most, but still misunderstood it:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; In 1993 Vernor Vinge drew on computer science and his fellow science-fiction writers to argue that ordinary human history was drawing to a close. We would surely create superhuman intelligence sometime within the next three decades, leading to a “Singularity”, in which AI would start feeding on itself.&lt;p&gt;Yes it was Vernor, but he said something much more interesting: that as the speed of innovation itself sped up (the derivative of acceleration) the curve could bend up until it became essentially vertical, literally a singularity in the curve.  And then things on the other side of that singularity would be incomprehensible to those of us on our side of it. This is reflected in Peace and Fire upon the deep and other of his novels going back before the essay.&lt;p&gt;You can see in this idea is itself rooted in ideas from Alvin Toffler in the 70s (Future Shock) and Ray Lafferty in the 60s (e.g. Slow Tuesday Night).&lt;p&gt;So AI machines were just part of the enabling phenomena -- the most important, and yes the center of his &amp;#x27;93 essay.  But the core of the metaphor was broader than that.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a little disappointed that The Economist, of all publications, didn&amp;#x27;t get ths quite right, but in their defense, it was a bit tangental to the point of the essay.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bratbag</author><text>Its infinite from the perspective of our side of the curve.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s another application of advanced technology appearing to be magic, but imagine transitioning into it in a matter of hours, then with that advanced tech transitioning further into damn-near godhood within minutes.&lt;p&gt;Then imagine what happens in the second after that.&lt;p&gt;It may be operating within the boundaries of physics, but they would be physical rules well beyond our understanding and may even be infinite by our own limited definition of physics.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s the curve.</text></comment>