From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sun Mar 31 2002 - 00:44:37 MST
At 11:22 PM 3/30/02 -0800, Hal wrote:
>I suppose a Spike by any other name would swell as steep...
>...but to me the word connotes a rapid rise followed by an equally rapid
>fall. Graphically it is as though you have driven a metal spike through
>the curve from below.
This is the usual next question from audiences, and the term's principal
drawback. But luckily it allows me to go on at once to speak of a series of
saturating S-curves, with historical examples, and of the second order
curve spiking up majestically through them, and how it tears away through
the top of the graph. Will it come down again? Who can say...
>The Singularity will look more like a step function, or like a vertical
>wall.
Indeed. but Wall is rather a bummer of a meme, doncha know.
`Could I interest you in the wonderful, magical world of the coming Wall?
You know, the Blank Wall? Nobody can't see past it.'
`Go. Away' <slam>
But yes, the other one could trip lightly off the tongue:
`In 2030 or thereabouts, young man, I expect technology to rise upward in
an inspiring... tah rah!... Step Function!' <flourishes cape>
`...Say... *whaat*?' <mutinous silence>
Hmm.
Damien Broderick
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