It was Paco Xander Nathan (blog), mad genius of Fringeware, who back in the early 90s first told me about Vernor Vinge and The Singularity. For the next decade, I heard it referred to only rarely. Then in 2005, about the time Ray Kurzweil released his book: The Singularity is Coming, I began to hear the term used with some frequency. That same year, Vernor Vinge gave the keynote to an all-star crowd at the Accelerating Change 2005 conference. A year later, in 2006, the first Singularity Summit was held at Stanford, Ray Kurzweil being one of the organizers.
Whether it is the result of the general hoo haa regarding the Semantic Web or some other factor, in the last few months, I’ve been hearing the term ’singularity’ pop up quite a bit in local conversations. Thankfully, the word has five syllables.
Since no one has time to read any more, I decided to assemble a collection of mp3s on The Singularity for Mopac University. Right click, burn them, and listen to them on your way to the office.
Accelerating Change 2005
Vernor Vinge Keynote Presentation recorded 2005-09-17 (listen to the mp3)
“The singularity is not a given, nor is it necessarily a positive event. Many factors could arise that prevent the singularity from occurring and there is a potential for it to be a catastrophic event rather than a positive revolution.”
Ray Kurzweil When Humans Transcend Biology recorded 2005-09-17 (listen to the mp3)
(an abbreviated version appeared on Tech Nation with Moira Gunn - listen to the mp3)
John Smart How to be a Tech Futurist -recorded 2005-09-17 (listen to the mp3)
An extended list of presentations from Accelerating Change can be found at ITConversations.
The Singularity Summit 2007
Barney Pell - Powerset Co-Founder & CEO - Singularity Summit 2007 - Pathways to Advanced General Intelligence - recorded 2007-09-08 (listen to the mp3)
Ben Goertzel - Nine Years to a Positive Singularity - recorded 2007-09-08 (listen to the mp3)
An extended list of presentations from the Singularity Summit 2007 can be found at ITConversations.
The Singularity Institute, which organizes the Singularity Summit, has a series of interviews. Some of them are quite good. They also have videos of the 2006 presentations and 2007 presentations. Please don’t watch the videos while driving.
See you on Mopac. Remember, no need to rush. We’re already in Austin.
