Charles Stross Interview

An anonymous reader writes "I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet: a very interesting interview with author Charles Stross, whose current cycle of singularity-based stories Accelerando (featuring character Manfred Macx) is as tightly-packed with cutting-edge speculations as Bruce Sterling's work. An excerpt from the first of those stories is currently available on the Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine website."

Comments

Re:Singularity

[zephc]

there is a great clipping from one of the papers on the singularity and nanotech:

I would expect diamondoid drextech - full-scale molecular nanotechnology - to take a couple of days; a couple of hours minimum, a couple of weeks maximum. Keeping the Singularity quiet might prove a challenge, but I think it'll be possible, plus we'll have transhuman guidance. Once drextech is developed, the assemblers shall go forth into the world, and quietly reproduce, until the day (probably a few hours later) when the Singularity can reveal itself without danger - when there are enough tiny guardians to disable nuclear weapons and shut down riots, keeping the newborn Mind safe from humanity and preventing humanity from harming itself.

The planetary death rate of 150,000 lives per day comes to a screeching halt. The pain ends. We find out what's on the other side of dawn.

(After a series of Singularity/Monty Python takeoffs on the Extropians list, Joseph Sterlynne suggested that the systems should be programmed so that the instant before it happens we hear the calm and assured voice of John Cleese:

"And now for something completely different.")