Why the future doesn't need us

Want to know which technology scares me the most ? AI combined with nanotechnology. Here's an interview with professor Vernor Vinge, a pioneer in artificial intelligence, who's claiming we'll be getting near the Technological Singularity near 2020, which indicates the point where man-made machines will be more intelligent than man.
Bill Joy, the former Sun executive, warned in 2000 with his Why the future doesn't need us, an essay with some somber thoughts about how our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species.

Karel Jansens Fri, 05/18/2007 - 16:19

Vinge has been writing about the Singularity for almost 30 years now, and I still don't know what it is. I don't get the impression that he meant for it to be that computers will outsmart us in "the Peace War".

BTW, will you be at the Hawking/Kroto lecture sunday?

Karel Jansens Wed, 05/30/2007 - 00:44

In reply to by Kristof_

I cannot say you missed much. I mainly went for the thrill of seeing Professor Hawking "in the flesh", and in that respect the lectures were a success. The content wasn't anything new, as one could have expected. Kroto I did not like at all, but then, I'm a paleo-conservative. So there...

I did take a sound-recording, but it was with my Archos PMA430 without external microphone and the clicking of the hard drive is very audible. I'm rather sorry I took the request not to take flash fotos too literally and didn't bring a camera at all, especially as the audience was full of people taking pictures anyway. There should be a video-recording somewhere: the lectures were taped for audiences in the adjoining halls.

If only you'd read my comment earlier; I had a spare seat in my car.