I think the mistake here is that there is a certain rate of progress where humanity can no longer even collectively process the progress and it is equivalent to infinite progress. This point is the singularity and requires non-human driven progress. We may or may not reach that point but full automation is a requirement. We may hit a hard wall and devolve to an s-curve, hit a maximum linear progress rate, hit a progress rate bounded by population growth and human capability growth (a much slower exponential), or pass the 1/epsilon slope point where we throw up our hands (singularity). Time will tell.
somat 8 minutes ago [-]
I think of it like time dilation, such as near a black hole(see what I did there, tying the two singularities together).
From the perspective of one experiencing time-dilation nothing appears unusual, everything appears normal, it only from the outside perspective that things are strange.
As far as I can tell the singularity happened in the late 1700's. For thousands of years the collective economic growth of the world was effectively a straight shallow line, it grew, but slowly and linearly, then in the late 1700's something changed, it went exponential and everybody was along for the ride, and from the perspective of being caught up in this exponential growth it appears flat, normal even. but you look at history and wonder why every advance was so slow. and you look ahead and say the singularity is almost there. But we will never actually reach it. by the time we get there it is the new normal.
Legend2440 33 minutes ago [-]
I think this is accurate. However, this does not mean that the exponential isn't real, it just isn't sudden. We have been living through continuously accelerating technological and economic growth our whole lives, and things really do happen much faster now than they did in the past.
For example it took centuries for indoor plumbing to be widely adopted, and less than a decade for smartphones. It took hundreds of thousands of years to get the first billion people (~1800), but the eighth billion happened in eleven years (2011-2022).
javcasas 17 minutes ago [-]
The initial part of an S-curve looks a lot like an exponential. The final part doesn't.
Finding the second and the third antibiotic for non resistant bacteria may be fast and easy, finding another three antibiotics for resistant bacteria decades later is now crazy hard, as bacteria evolved to resist everything that doesn't also kill humans.
Legend2440 14 minutes ago [-]
Eh, sure, we'll hit limits eventually. We appear to be pretty far off from hard limits like thermodynamics though, and the world after we hit those limits could look very science-fiction.
For antibiotics specifically, we will probably find other ways to fight bacteria even if we never discover another chemical antibiotic. As one technology S-curves, another technology replaces it.
chasil 17 minutes ago [-]
Someone pointed out to me a few days ago that mine is the last generation who were able to lose touch and reconnect after long periods of time.
In the days of rotary & pay telephones the loss of communication was possible.
That is no longer the case.
guelo 4 minutes ago [-]
This isn't right, the inflection point happens when computers/software can self-improve at a level where humans can't keep up. It isn't just that progress is continuously exponential, it's that tech becomes a magic box that spits out advances while even the smartest humans can only pray to it, like a (hopefully benevolent) god.
paulpauper 33 minutes ago [-]
I see parallels with AGI/takeoff. "It's just 2 years away" every year. KK agues that the process is continuous, but AI optimists argue the inflection will be abrupt , like a step-function.
CrazyStat 28 minutes ago [-]
The premise of the singularity concept was always superhuman intelligence, so it’s not so much a parallel as a renaming of the same thing.
> In Vinge’s analysis, at some point not too far away, innovations in computer power would enable us to design computers more intelligent than we are, and these smarter computers could design computers yet smarter than themselves, and so on, the loop of computers-making-newer-computers accelerating very quickly towards unimaginable levels of intelligence.
Rendered at 22:14:27 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
From the perspective of one experiencing time-dilation nothing appears unusual, everything appears normal, it only from the outside perspective that things are strange.
As far as I can tell the singularity happened in the late 1700's. For thousands of years the collective economic growth of the world was effectively a straight shallow line, it grew, but slowly and linearly, then in the late 1700's something changed, it went exponential and everybody was along for the ride, and from the perspective of being caught up in this exponential growth it appears flat, normal even. but you look at history and wonder why every advance was so slow. and you look ahead and say the singularity is almost there. But we will never actually reach it. by the time we get there it is the new normal.
For example it took centuries for indoor plumbing to be widely adopted, and less than a decade for smartphones. It took hundreds of thousands of years to get the first billion people (~1800), but the eighth billion happened in eleven years (2011-2022).
Finding the second and the third antibiotic for non resistant bacteria may be fast and easy, finding another three antibiotics for resistant bacteria decades later is now crazy hard, as bacteria evolved to resist everything that doesn't also kill humans.
For antibiotics specifically, we will probably find other ways to fight bacteria even if we never discover another chemical antibiotic. As one technology S-curves, another technology replaces it.
In the days of rotary & pay telephones the loss of communication was possible.
That is no longer the case.
> In Vinge’s analysis, at some point not too far away, innovations in computer power would enable us to design computers more intelligent than we are, and these smarter computers could design computers yet smarter than themselves, and so on, the loop of computers-making-newer-computers accelerating very quickly towards unimaginable levels of intelligence.