TheSingularity

A Positive Singularity

DR gives this an optimistic 40% eventually (with no particular conception that it will happen in his lifetime)

A Negative Singularity

DR gives this a 20% chance.  Because I'm hoping that as we get nearer to the bifuracation point between positive and negative singularities, the progress to that point will have increased the ability to make good decisions of those at the cutting edge.  Yes, we might benefit from delaying the decision by a couple of centuries while we gain wisdom as a species, but I don't think that is going to happen.

Apocalypse

DR gives this a flat 10% (Down from 20% in the early 80s)

Stasis

DR gives this a 1% chance, if that.

Misunderstanding or, The Singularity Is A Silly Idea Made Up By People Who've Read Too Much Sci-fi

Tricky one this.  We're basically talking about the rate at which new technology is adopted by and provides assistance to that small subset of humanity that fuels the production of new technology (ie scientists and their financial backers).  The inhibiting factor is how big a jump an individual scientist can make in their career, and what requires waiting for a new generation to enter the workforce.  For this reason I don't think progress is a straight exponential, but it is probably close enough to one that we'll still get a singularity of sorts (abeit one with a few strange step-like delays in the curve).  DR gives this a 29% chance.

no-reverse.redstone-isp.net gives 100 % that The Singularity Is A Silly Idea Made Up By People Who've Read Too Much Sci-fi.  Not one of the original ones from the programe, but more likely. Technology keeps advancing, maybe exponentialy, maybe not, people remain much the same as they ever have done and ever will.

You are not alone in that view - [Bob Cringely] shares it. --DR

On a slightly less "It's rubbish" line - when has any exponential curve continued exponential for very long?  The curve will flatten out sooner or later.  Will there be a point at which we can't predict the future more than ten years ahead?  That point would be forever.  --Vitenka

Here are [some examples of the exponential curves of different technologies] and [an examination of how to tell when an exponential is part of an 'S' curve] --DR

AC, EditConflicting, wrote this: I think this heading is included in the "misunderstanding" category. I'd go along with this: technology has been advancing exponentially, but that can't continue arbitrarily; it'll start leveling off (or at least head towards being geometric rather than exponential). --AC

Interesting point.  Why do you believe that it can't ?  There is a [Wikipedia page on the limitations of exponential models of growth] but it doesn't tackle the generalisation effect, where you go from looking at, for example, the growth of railroads, to the growth of miles that tonnes of good are transported per year.--DR

Jumlian is also in this category, as, apparently, are those at TheRegister, who have an [[elegant destruction]] of the program, the science and methodology behind it...

In my opinion, we will always be able to predict the larger things in life ten years in advance, simply because large things take a while to be built. So for example, walking down the street is likely to feel very much like it does now in ten years time. The shape of houses is likely to be entirely predictable over a ten-year period. We're likely to be able to predict when we get robot servants in most households, simply because they will be extremely expensive for at least the first ten years or so. However, with the small things, we already cannot predict what they will be like ten years from now. Ten years before it happened, did anyone predict MP3 players the size of your thumb? --Admiral

I think they may be thinking on a longer time scale than that (and yes, highly influenced by SF).  But if you are assuming nanotechnology, space travel, advanced robots and automated factories, and people with 'uploaded' minds spending most of their time in VR... they are probably confident that a society at that stage could change the look and feel of the physical streets in under 10 years.  By all means shoot their arguments down, but attack their real arguments, not straw men. --DR

I think I can't be understanding this clearly.  AIUI, the premise is: Computers get twice as fast with each generation.  OK, fine so far.  Now, we imagine that we can construct a computer which can design the next generation of computers; we'll call these G1 and G2.  OK.. still fine.  So.. G2 computers are twice as fast as G1 computers, so they can design G2 computers in half the time that G1 computers could.  This affects the time until G3 how?  OK, so now we imagine that designing each generation of computers takes the same amount of computer-time; I don't see why this is the case, but apparently it needs to be.  So, G2 computers can design G3 computers in half the time that G1 computers could; and G3 can design G4 in half the time again, and so on.  So, the time to build generation N is given by sum [i=1 to N] { B + (2^-i) * D }, where B and D are the build and design times, each of which start out non-zero.  So, we approach G-infinity after.. um.. infinity times B.  Oh no!  After the universe ends, we're in deep doo-doo! --SGB

Which would be relevant, if that was the slow part of scientific research. It isn't. The rate-limiting factors (at least in applied physics, which is what most of this page seems to be about), are the extreme cost of equipment and the large amount of preparation time required for most analytical techniques. --SF

It looks to me rather like claiming that having a computer chip which can cycle faster while it's waiting for me to type will help me finish a novel in less time. --ChiarkPerson

Is it?  I'd have thought that was the limiting factor on the number of experiments a single scientist can get done per year, not on the global time between ground breaking discoveries, which seems to depend on the scientist making the breakthrough having access to the right pre-cursor pieces of research. --DR

I think both are valid points.  There's some science which, yeah, needs big equipment and has long setup times.  And there's other science which is synthesising bits of science that's already been done together and coming up with new theories and applications.  --Vitenka