“What if, as Vernor Vinge proposed, exponentially accelerating science and technology are rushing us into a Singularity (Vinge, 1986; 1993), what I have called the Spike? Technological time will be neither an arrow nor a cycle (in Stephen Jay Gould’s phrase), but a series of upwardly accelerating logistical S-curves, each supplanting the one before it as it flattens out. Then there’s no pattern of reasoned expectation to be mapped, no knowable Chernobyl or Fukushima Daiichi to deplore in advance. Merely—opacity.”
...G. Harry Stine, ‘Science Fiction is Too Conservative’ (1961); this was followed by G.Harry Stine, ‘Science Fiction is Still Too Conservative!’ (1985). In 1996, I asked Stine for his current assessment. Without commenting on his wildly optimistic and erroneous earlier projections, he replied gamely: ‘Science fiction is STILL too conservative!’ (Personal communication).
Most of the rest is summaries of various Singularity/transhuman scenarios; I did like his descriptions of Stross’s Accelerando (modulo the point that obviously AI-neko is narrating the whole thing).
Damien Broderick paper
Most of the rest is summaries of various Singularity/transhuman scenarios; I did like his descriptions of Stross’s Accelerando (modulo the point that obviously AI-neko is narrating the whole thing).