I switched to a MVNO that operates using Sprint's network. I get unlimited 1x data for a flat rate of 19 cents a day. No contracts. My whole cell phone bill has gone down to like $10 a month. I still have my old phone number, and keep it as long as I remember to make at least one phone call every 2 months. I have a $10 USB cable for my sweet new camera phone that lets me use this unlimited data function with my laptop wherever I go.
Please stop mis-using the term Singularity, which if you read the book you will see that Kurzweil went to a great deal of trouble to clarify and explain. By definition, it doesn't apply to a single field. It's an upcoming period of time when overall technological change will drive societal change in extremely rapid and not-completely-known directions. It will be, by definition, driven by superintelligent entities (whether pure AIs or a mix of human-enhanced people & AIs isn't clear) capable of generating increasingly rapid intelligence and technology gains. We ain't there yet, so quit mixing people up.
There's enough coal alone for another 1000 years, and China already has a large coal liquefaction (turns it into nice sweet oil) in test mode. Add onto that the huge oil amounts in things like Canada's tar pits which are already producing oil at around $10 per barrel and we are cooking. Now add onto that cheap and safe nuclear pebble bed reactors, 1000's of years of natural gas on the ocean floor locked up in methyl hydrates, increasing wind/tidal/solar power, and eventually fusion power.
1. Alzheimers has just recently been cured in mice.
2. Computing power is rapidly reaching human brain equivalent.
3. Who gives a crap about spaceships into orbit? Inventing a real superintelligence could solve that problem in 5 minutes.
4. Again, who cares about random physics problems?
5. I'm sounding like a broken record, but yes guess what, a superintelligence could solve all our energy problems probably overnight just by whipping up the right nanotech solutions.
I think cynics need to take a breath and consider just what a real superintelligence could do if such a thing existed.
Most of the things mentioned above don't even relate to superintelligence - they are just typical gripes by people who grew up watching movies about monkeys flying through space battling guys-in-rubber-masks.
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I switched to a MVNO that operates using Sprint's network. I get unlimited 1x data for a flat rate of 19 cents a day. No contracts. My whole cell phone bill has gone down to like $10 a month. I still have my old phone number, and keep it as long as I remember to make at least one phone call every 2 months. I have a $10 USB cable for my sweet new camera phone that lets me use this unlimited data function with my laptop wherever I go.
Please stop mis-using the term Singularity, which if you read the book you will see that Kurzweil went to a great deal of trouble to clarify and explain. By definition, it doesn't apply to a single field. It's an upcoming period of time when overall technological change will drive societal change in extremely rapid and not-completely-known directions. It will be, by definition, driven by superintelligent entities (whether pure AIs or a mix of human-enhanced people & AIs isn't clear) capable of generating increasingly rapid intelligence and technology gains. We ain't there yet, so quit mixing people up.
Wrong.
There's enough coal alone for another 1000 years, and China already has a large coal liquefaction (turns it into nice sweet oil) in test mode. Add onto that the huge oil amounts in things like Canada's tar pits which are already producing oil at around $10 per barrel and we are cooking. Now add onto that cheap and safe nuclear pebble bed reactors, 1000's of years of natural gas on the ocean floor locked up in methyl hydrates, increasing wind/tidal/solar power, and eventually fusion power.
Energy is not going to be a problem.
Cynics wake up and please note:
1. Alzheimers has just recently been cured in mice.
2. Computing power is rapidly reaching human brain equivalent.
3. Who gives a crap about spaceships into orbit? Inventing a real superintelligence could solve that problem in 5 minutes.
4. Again, who cares about random physics problems?
5. I'm sounding like a broken record, but yes guess what, a superintelligence could solve all our energy problems probably overnight just by whipping up the right nanotech solutions.
I think cynics need to take a breath and consider just what a real superintelligence could do if such a thing existed.
Most of the things mentioned above don't even relate to superintelligence - they are just typical gripes by people who grew up watching movies about monkeys flying through space battling guys-in-rubber-masks.