Bruce Sterling vs. The Singularity

________________________________________

Subject: BRUCE STERLING vs. The Singularity, Friday (for forwarding)


One reason lots of people don't want to think long term these days is
because technology keeps accelerating so rapidly, we assume the world
will become unrecognizable in a few years and then move on to
unimaginable. Long-term thinking must be either impossible or
irrelevant.

The commonest shorthand term for the runaway acceleration of
technology is "the Singularity"---a concept introduced by science
fiction writer Vernor Vinge in 1984. The term has been
enthusiastically embraced by technology historians, futurists,
extropians, and various trans-humanists and post-humanists, who have
generated variants such as "the techno-rapture," "the Spike," etc.

It takes a science fiction writer to critique a science fiction idea.
This Friday in San Francisco BRUCE STERLING will give a public
lecture titled "The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole."

Friday, June 11, 7pm, Fort Mason Conference Center, San Francisco.
Doors open for coffee and books at 7pm; lecture is promptly at 8pm.
The room seats only 250, so you may want to come early to be sure of
a seat. Admission is free (donation of $10 very welcome, not
requiredl).

Along with being one of America's leading science fiction writers and
technology journalists, Bruce Sterling is a celebrated speaker armed
with lethal wit. His books include The Zenith Angle (just out),
Hacker Crackdown, Holy Fire, Distraction, Mirrorshades (cyberpunk
compendium), Schismatrix, The Difference Engine (with William
Gibson), Tomorrow Now, and Islands in the Net.

This is one of a monthly series of Seminars About Long-term Thinking,
given every second Friday at Fort Mason, organized by The Long Now
Foundation. Future speakers in the series include Jill Tarter, Danny
Hillis, Paul Hawken, Michael West, Ken Dychtwald, Laurie Anderson,
and Jared Diamond. If you would like to be notified by email of
forthcoming talks, please contact Simone Davalos---
simone@longnow.org, 415-561-6582.

You are welcome to forward this note to anyone you think might be
interested.

--Stewart Brand
-- Stewart Brand The Long Now Foundation - http://www.longnow.org Seminars: http://www.longnow.o...ry/Seminars.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy...fo/extropy-chat

I'll be going to this. If anyone else is, be sure to say hi to me at the event!

http://seminars.longnow.org/

In my opinion, Sterling was rather naive concerning some of the finner points of if/when we'll see a Singularity. His discussion was funny and refreshing nonetheless. It was good to hear an opposing and well informed side to the Singularity discussion.

I concur with Marc Geddes. I hope the Long Now Foundation didn't pay this guy. I was hoping for something good, but he didn't add anything to the understanding of the Singularity concept. He was very cynical. It was a little funny at first but it got boring after awhile. He didn't seem to understand the concept very well. He was demonstrating a very strong anthropocentric conceit.

Consider the source. Sterling makes his living by creating waves. As he said, it's not his duty as a SF writer to get the facts perfect as his job is to stretch the imagination. What better way to do this than to fluff the feathers?

Introspective humor can be very funny...when there is truth to it. I can laugh very hard at myself. I guess this presentation would be funny for people who have not thought much about technological change. Maybe that was his audience.

I know where he was trying to go. I know he was trying to provide a funny-side to singularity thinking, and make a few waves, etc... it just didn't stir me to laugh much. Maybe if I was there in person, it would have seemed more refreshing and lighthearted.

Also, it was very depressing, not just about the singularity concept, but about all of human history.

As a human being, that was probably his way of coping with such utter uncertainty, which I think is understandable. But if something good could come from this ill-humored paternalizing, it is that it might get some of those people to investigate this topic further, if they were just introduced or had a previously vague concept, and perhaps become interested in the true importance of this idea, the technological Singularity… without anthropomorphic superimposition.

Some of the topics involved in Singularitarian thought:

http://www.singinst....eadinglist.html

I'd really welcome links to this page if you believe it may cultivate more careful thinkers.

All the best,

---------
Tyler Emerson
Executive Director
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/
Suite 106 PMB #12
4290 Bells Ferry Road
Kennesaw, GA 30144
emerson@singinst.org
The SIAI Voice - Our Free Bulletin:
http://www.singinst..../subscribe.html

Hey all, I attended the first half of Bruce's talk and then took off - it was what I expected. Marc and Mind basically say it how it is. It's funny how speakers like this always refer to all the "singularitarian groups" out there that exist nowhere but their own minds. Bruce Sterling seemed to know an awful lot about us, supposedly we suffer the "usual writer divorce rates and substance abuse problems". But on the plus side, we're "well-behaved, civilized and artsy, charmingly innocent" and so on. As far as I can tell, all of this was just made up. By and large, the talk was extremely anthropocentric and a bit odd, very poorly researched, and intellectually lazy. At times he went so far off on a tangent that I thought I was attending free mic night at a comedy club rather than a talk associated with the Long Now Foundation.