NPR Looks to Technological Singularity

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Sunday July 23, 2006 @09:36AM from the science-driven-by-science-fiction dept.

Rick Kleffel writes to tell us that NPR is featuring a piece with both Vernor Vinge and Cory Doctorow looking at the possibility of the "technological singularity" in the near future. Wikipedia defines a technological singularity as a "hypothetical "event horizon" in the predictability of human technological development. Past this event horizon, following the creation of strong artificial intelligence or the amplification of human intelligence, existing models of the future cease to give reliable or accurate answers. Futurists predict that after the Singularity, posthumans and/or strong AI will replace humans as the dominating force in science and technology, rendering human-specific social models obsolete."

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This is utterly stupid by E++99 · 2006-07-23 11:02 · Score: 0, Flamebait

What?? Illiterate people are of a different species than literate people? Does that mean it's ok for us to go capture people from an illiterate country and keep them as pets? Do I have to be good at spelling to be in your species, Mr. Futurist? Or since I'm better at programming than spelling, am I already a post-human? In that case would it be acceptable for me to cook you and eat you, or is post-human morality still pretty much up in the air?