Vernor Vinge’s “Religion”
“If, as Ellul has it, technology is the state religion, Singularitarianism must be seen as its most extreme and fanatical sect. It is the Opus Dei of the postwar church of gadget worship. Ray Kurzweil may be the best-known prophet of this order, but he was not the first. The true father of Singularitarianism is a sci-fi author and retired mathematics professor from Wisconsin named Vernor Vinge.” https://www.salon.com/…/the-singularity-is-not-near-the-in…/
I disagree. Yes, Vernor Vinge invented the word “singularity” in 1984, but actually was Ray Kurzweil to make it famous.
Personally I don’t think the Singularity is soooo near, but for sure it will arrive. Perhaps we will terraform the moon before having a general AI, or -perhaps- google will surprise all of us. In any case, the 30years forecast imagined by Vernor Vinge already arrived, and the most we have is an almost human way to book an haircut (google ) https://www.theverge.com/…/google-assistant-makes-phone-cal…
Anyway, my first meeting with Singularity was a lucky one. Together with David Orban, we meet Vernor Vinge in 2008! SU wasn’t there and no “tech driven religion” was menacing the flat-earthers or any other already existing faiths.
I never meet Vernor after that day, and I can’t say that I actually know him. But certainly I didn’t found him “dangerous”. He was jus a brilliant nice old man. A visionary with human empathy.
So, just to make dismantle a little part of the social media noise… Today, in America, there are more flat-earthers than Singularitarianism and while the faith of Singularitarianism it might be referred to something that might happen or not, flat earth is not a thing. Not at all.
In the day were other are Singularitarians might easily confused with Scientologists, I would like restart from the basics and -taking inspiration from Vinge- I would like to remark that: It’s actually about SCIENCE (not religion).
