[HN Gopher] The Singularity Is Always Near (2006)
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The Singularity Is Always Near (2006)
Author : rmason
Score : 33 points
Date : 2026-02-03 00:32 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (kk.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (kk.org)
| paulpauper wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| d_silin wrote:
| Would never work in reality, you can't optimize algorithms
| beyond their computation complexity limits.
|
| You can't multiply matrix x matrix (or vector x matrix)
| faster than O(N^2).
|
| You can't iterate through array faster than O(N).
|
| Search & sort are sub- or near-linear, yes - but any
| realistic numerical simulations are O(N^3) or worse.
| Computational chemistry algorithms can be as hard as O(N^7).
|
| And that's all in P class, not even NP.
| dekhn wrote:
| We don't need to optimize algorithms beyond their
| computational complexity limits to improve hardware.
| Legend2440 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| My example is lighting technology:
|
| Wood fires were the only option for something like a few
| hundred thousand years.
|
| Oil lamps for millennia.
|
| Tallow or beeswax candles are modern technology, appearing
| after the fall of the Roman Empire.
|
| Gas lighting was widespread for less than a century.
|
| Incandescent lightbulbs for another century, but were starting
| to get replaced by fluorescent tubes just decades later.
|
| Cold cathode fluorescents saw mainstream use for about two
| decades.
|
| LEDs completely displaced almost all previous forms of lighting
| in less than a decade.
|
| I recently read about a new form of lighting developed and
| commercialised in just a few of years:
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adf3737
| sempron64 wrote:
| This is an excellent example to illustrate an S-curve. There
| is a certain amount of energy in a photon. It cannot be
| emitted with less energy. There is 100% efficiency barrier
| that cannot be surpassed no matter how smart you are.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Population is a particularly good example: just decades ago it
| seemed like we were barreling toward an overpopulation crisis.
| I'm aware that some people think we're beyond the carrying
| capacity of the Earth long-term. But there seems to be a broad
| consensus that birth rates are declining everywhere without a
| food crisis or other immediately visible calamity.
|
| Population appears to be on a droopy S curve. The
| preposterousness of those space data centers and the fact that
| we don't have a theory of consciousness makes it seem plausible
| that AI could also not continue to rocket ahead.
| Legend2440 wrote:
| >The preposterousness of those space data centers and the
| fact that we don't have a theory of consciousness makes it
| seem plausible that AI could also not continue to rocket
| ahead.
|
| The rate of datacenter construction in the last few years
| exceeds Moore's law and is almost certainly unsustainable.
| 'Only' 2x improvement every 2 years would seem relatively
| slow compared to what's happened recently.
|
| However, I expect AI will continue to advance over the coming
| decades even once the bubble pops. They're clearly on to
| something with neural networks.
| chasil wrote:
| 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.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| We will carry the memory of the old ways into the 22nd century,
| just as our grandparents did with their 19th century
| inclinations. I, for one, look forward to writing out a
| complete essay in cursive with a pencil as the grandkids stare
| in awe.
| somat wrote:
| 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.
| davnicwil wrote:
| I think the classic definition of the singularity though (per
| Kurzweil's book) is precisely when the curve actually doesn't
| look flat on human comprehensible timescales any more.
|
| I.e. One day there are significant overnight changes. Then _the
| very next day_ hourly changes, soon thereafter every minute,
| second, millisecond, etc.
| Retric wrote:
| Humanity has been rapidly advancing throughout recorded
| history. We just gloss over advancements in outdated
| technology. Who cares about when exactly the stirrup was
| invented when we have cars. Medieval armor was vastly better
| than what was available in the Roman Empire, but it didn't just
| suddenly jump to better there was a host of minor innovations.
|
| The amazing complexity in rigging seen in the age of sail is
| built on a long line of innovation, but engines rendered it
| largely irrelevant etc. As such ~1700 isn't some clear tipping
| point, just the horizon before which innovation seems less
| relevant.
| guelo wrote:
| 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.
| sempron64 wrote:
| 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 to reach it. 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). Or have a dark age where
| progress goes negative. Time will tell.
| d_silin wrote:
| A good reminder that every technological exponent is a sigmoid.
| agentzed wrote:
| It is something that will or will not happen on an individual
| level.
|
| You are fools to think you personally are a part of or will be
| present at the zenith of human ascendancy.
|
| One, all, and the world will go on as though another day. Those
| who become or go beyond their "full self" will merely have a new
| level. Like a base conversion.
|
| Besides, there are notes of singularities flitting in and out of
| your very minds. You get the the bottom of those and you will
| find whichever part is yours will come by your acquiring it for
| yourself.
|
| The singularium will be your own place in the ascendency of Man,
| through technology or personal development. The self is the
| ultimate technology.
| Nevermark wrote:
| I have noticed a pattern where one thing that is not understood
| gets tied to another thing that is not understood, one
| perceived mystery to another, one unsolved problem to another,
| one misunderstanding with another, and then this is declared to
| be an answer.
|
| Quantum mechanics and consciousness.
|
| Pyramids and aliens.
|
| Looking forward, it is a great opportunity for random mashup
| "explanations". The urge will be great for some people.
| agentzed wrote:
| Too true.
|
| Quantum mechanics as understood is flawed, consciousness is
| universal potential subjectively bound to particulate,
| animated by living biotechnology, and squares of this day
| still refuse to wink at "magic."
|
| Pyramids are human engineering. "The Greys" are our Earth
| mates. America's nuclear suicidal tendencies have revoked
| your right to deny. I speak only for the ascendency of Man.
|
| Have fun flat landing stoic, I know you're really a bleeding
| heart.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > the Kurzweilian version of singularity
|
| Cynical take: Kurzweil's predictions follow a predictable pattern
| which suggests something about how and why they are being
| generated.
|
| Namely, it's whatever increasingly-improbable new advances and
| discoveries are needed to ensure achieve practical immortality is
| achieved _just in time_ for a particular human named Ray Kurzweil
| to escape the icy grip of death.
| zqna wrote:
| And we are running out of time
| zqna wrote:
| If singularity premise is correct, then i think it should must
| already had happened in our cluster of the universe. Since it
| hasn't yet, then there are 3 options. 1st: earth and earthlings
| are special, which is too egocentric notion to be taken
| seriously. 2nd: we are being observed for entertainment by high
| conciousness. That could explain a lot, though this removes
| agency and prevents us from reaching that moment on our own (but
| maybe the observers are curious to find that out). 3rd: the
| extinction and annihilation of so-called intelligence once it
| obliterates all the resources in vicinity. Of course there is
| option number 4, but ultimately the question, what is the point
| of that?
| postalrat wrote:
| https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI
| DavidSJ wrote:
| A mistake in this critique is it assumes an exponential: a
| constant proportional rate of growth. It is true that, in some
| sense, an exponential always seems to be accelerating while
| infinity always remains equally far away.
|
| But this is a bit of a straw man. Mathematical models of the
| technological singularity [1], along with the history of human
| economic growth [2], are super-exponential: the rate of growth is
| itself increasing over time, or at least has taken multiple
| discrete leaps [3] at the transitions to agriculture and
| industry, respectively. A true singularity/infinity can of course
| never be achieved for physical reasons (limited stuff within the
| cubically-expanding lightcone, plus inherent limits to technology
| itself), but the growth curve can look hyperbolic and traverse
| many orders of magnitude before those physical limits are
| encountered.
|
| [1]
| https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23928/w239...
|
| [2]
| https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wcEPEb2mnZ9mtGlkv8lEtScU...
|
| [3] https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/longgrow.pdf
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| The problem with the concept of "the singularity" it is has a
| hidden assumption that _computation has no relationship to
| energy_. Which, once unmasked, is a pretty outlandish claim.
|
| There is a popular illusion that somehow technological progress
| is a pure function of human ingenuity, and that the more
| efficient we can make technology the faster we can make even
| better technological improvement. But history of technology has
| always been the history of _energy_ usage.
|
| Prior to the emergence of homo-sapiens, "humans" learned to cook
| food by releasing energy stored in wood. Cooking food is often
| considered a prerequisite for the development of the massive,
| energy consuming, brain of homo-sapiens.
|
| After that it took hundreds of thousands of years for Earth's
| climate to become stable enough to make agriculture feasible. We
| see almost no technological progress until we start harvesting
| enormous amounts of solar energy through farming. Not long after
| this we see the development of mathematics and writing since
| humans now had surplus energy and they could spend some of it on
| other things.
|
| You can follow this pattern though the development and extraction
| of coal, oil etc. You can look at the advancement of technology
| in the last 100 years alongside our use of fossil fuels and
| expansion of energy capabilities with renewables (which
| historically only been used to supplement, not replace non-
| renewables).
|
| But technological progress has always been a function of energy,
| and more specifically, going back to cooking food,
| computational/cognitive ability similarly demands increasingly
| high energy consumption.
|
| All evidence seems to suggest that we increasingly need _more_
| energy for incrementally smaller return on computation.
|
| So for something like the singularity to happen, we would also
| need _incredible_ changes in available energy (there 's also a
| more nuanced argument that you also need _smooth energy
| gradients_ but that 's more discussion than necessary).
| Computation is not going to rapidly expand without also requiring
| tremendously large increases in energy.
|
| Further it's entirely reasonable that there is some practical
| limit to just how "smart" a thing can be based on the energy
| requirements to get there. That is, you can't reasonably harvest
| enough energy to create intelligence on the level we imagine (the
| same way there is a limit to how tall a mountain can be on earth
| due to gravity).
|
| Like most mystical thinking, ignoring what we know about
| thermodynamics tends to be a fundamental axiom.
| ck2 wrote:
| vaguely related
|
| https://bigthink.com/guest-thinkers/ray-kurzweil-the-six-epo...
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