From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Date: Tue Dec 21 1999 - 15:38:43 MST
> Point of history. Vernor Vinge spoke about the positive-feedback side
> of the Singularity, the effect of enhanced intelligence on intelligence
> enhancement, as far back as "A Fire Upon the Deep", and I.J. Good before
> that. Was I, however, the first person to suggest that this function
> may actually go to infinity? I.e., the "If computing speed doubles
> every two years, what happens when computer-based AIs are doing the
> research? Two years, one year, six months, three months..." bit? (For
> the record, I published _Staring into the Singularity_ 1.0 in early 1996.)
Not that I really care about attributions or ideas, but I'd be very
surprized if that idea hasn't been in print since long before both of
us were born. _Erewhon_ comes pretty damned close!
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:06:10 MST