Bill Gates v.s. the Singularity

From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Fri Oct 16 1998 - 03:25:08 MDT


As a not-entirely-serious aside, I was idly pondering various issues
surrounding a singularity event when it occured to me that if global
causality violation is physically possible, we're likely to see it
employed by a strongly superhuman AI -- pace Hans Moravec's arguments
about the computational implications of time travel. It then occured
to me to wonder what the non-superhuman intelligences then living would
make of such a technology.

Suddenly I realised: they're living among us today!

The truth can be revealed at last: Bill Gates is a self-sacrificing
altruist, a time-traveller from the far side of the singularity. His
mission is nothing less than to single-handedly delay the onset of the
singularity, by setting back the development of computing in general
and AI in particular twenty or thirty years. (Talking paper-clips do
not a posthuman experience make.)

Of course, the denizens of the Beyond haven't taken this lying down.
They've sent their own emmisary back to us:

Linus Torvalds is The Terminator.

-- Charlie (hey, what's with that syringe? why do you want me to
            wear that straitjacket?) Stross



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