Singularity - Vernor Vinge

[antiloquax]

I recently read this article by Vinge on The Singularity and I am reading his story "True Names". I am interested in this idea as I have been working on a story which includes some ideas about a benign AI and time-travel. If anyone can point me to some other key texts, I'd be grateful.

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[nickpeirson]

Firstly, apologies for posting google searches rather than links, I've not got enough posts to allow me to post links yet!

There's a good look at Veror Vinge's essay from the SF author Charlie Stross.
Google:

antipope three arguments against the singularity

There's also a series of articles Charlie Stross' response from Alex Napp writing on his blog for Forbes.
Google:

whats-the-likelihood-of-the-singularity

Hope these are of interest.

 

[antiloquax]

Thank you nickpeirson. I will read the texts you mentioned.

You seem to be new to the Chronicles. Welcome! You might want to do an introduction.


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[jojajihisc]

I was going to say Stross too. Cory Doctorow might also be useful. Greg Egan has written many short stories about near-future, post-singularity tech. Counting Heads by David Marusek fits your description really well too. A non-fiction/speculative (contradiction?) book called The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil might be helpful too. It's full of specific predictions regarding technology's relentless and accelerating advance. If you're used to fiction good luck with it though, it's fairly dense and tedious reading.

 

[antiloquax]

Thanks jojajihisc. I've read an article that mentions Kurzweil. Your suggestions are very helpful.

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[Vertigo]

You might find a sort of contrary view interesting as well. In Poul Anderson's Boat of a million years, that I read recently, he discusses the idea that actually aliens and such like might not be particularly advanced. He argues that technology eventually hits the limits of physics and simply cannot go much further. He mentions a physicist who dreams of discovering something, anything that hasn't been discovered before but their AI describes that as diminishingly unlikely. Possibly a very real vision of the future and also a possible solution to the Fermi paradox.