Vernor Vinge
Vernor Vinge
Vernor Steffen Vingeis a retired San Diego State UniversityProfessor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels and novellas A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky, Rainbows End, Fast Times at Fairmont High, and The Cookie Monster, as well as for his 1984 novel The Peace War and his 1993 essay "The Coming Technological Singularity", in which he argues that the creation of superhuman artificial intelligence will mark the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth10 February 1944
CountryUnited States of America
Vernor Vinge quotes about
Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change.
Here I had tried a straightforward extrapolation of technology, and found myself precipitated over an abyss. It's a problem we face every time we consider the creation of intelligences greater than our own. When this happens, human history will have reached a kind of singularity - a place where extrapolation breaks down and new models must be applied - and the world will pass beyond our understanding.
Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things.
I have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an inevitable consequence of the humans natural competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology.
So much technology, so little talent.
If there be only hours, at least learn what there is time to learn.
I am suggesting that we recognize that in network and interface research there is something as profound (and potential wild) as Artificial Intelligence.