He uses the argument from personal incredulity though—one of the weakest forms of argument known.
He says:
“But wait – who’s to say that progress will remain “only” exponential? Might not progress exceed this rate, following an inverse polynomial curve (like gravity) or even an inverse exponential curve? I, for one, don’t see why it shouldn’t. If we consider specifically the means whereby the Singularity is most widely expected to occur, namely the development of computers with the capacity for recursive improvement of their own workings, I can see no argument why the rate at which such a computer would improve itself should not follow an inverse exponential curve, i.e. one in which the time taken to achieve a given degree of improvement takes time X, the time taken to repeat that degree of improvement is X/2, then X/4 and so on.”
My reply: to build a fast computer you don’t just need to perform computations quickly. You also need to be able to design and perform real-world experiments and tests. While sensor and motor capabilities are improving, they are not doing so with the same doubling time as exists for computers. Consequently, progress in these fields (and overall progress) is correspondingly slower.
Then there’s the influence of limits. Clock speed has already run into diminishing returns. By the time the slower-doubling systems have time to double very many times, the faster-doubling ones will have maxed-out—and will be hindering overall progress.
IMO, nobody seems to have thought the “singularity” idea through :-(
Aubrey argues for “the singularity” here:
“The singularity and the Methuselarity: similarities and differences”—by Aubrey de Grey
http://www.sens.org/files/sens/FHTI07-deGrey.pdf
He uses the argument from personal incredulity though—one of the weakest forms of argument known.
He says:
“But wait – who’s to say that progress will remain “only” exponential? Might not progress exceed this rate, following an inverse polynomial curve (like gravity) or even an inverse exponential curve? I, for one, don’t see why it shouldn’t. If we consider specifically the means whereby the Singularity is most widely expected to occur, namely the development of computers with the capacity for recursive improvement of their own workings, I can see no argument why the rate at which such a computer would improve itself should not follow an inverse exponential curve, i.e. one in which the time taken to achieve a given degree of improvement takes time X, the time taken to repeat that degree of improvement is X/2, then X/4 and so on.”
My reply: to build a fast computer you don’t just need to perform computations quickly. You also need to be able to design and perform real-world experiments and tests. While sensor and motor capabilities are improving, they are not doing so with the same doubling time as exists for computers. Consequently, progress in these fields (and overall progress) is correspondingly slower.
Then there’s the influence of limits. Clock speed has already run into diminishing returns. By the time the slower-doubling systems have time to double very many times, the faster-doubling ones will have maxed-out—and will be hindering overall progress.
IMO, nobody seems to have thought the “singularity” idea through :-(
I haven’t read the whole essay, but the portion that you quoted isn’t an argument from incredulity.
An argument from incredulity has the form “Since I can’t think of an argument for assigning P low probability, I should assign P high probability.”.
Aubrey’s argument has the form “Since I can’t think of an argument for assigning P low probability, I shouldn’t assign P low probability.”.
He’s expressing incredulity—and then arguing from that. He goes on to assume that this “singularity” thing happens for much of the rest of the paper.