Charlie Stross on Singularity 1 on 1: The World is Complicated. Elegant Narratives Explaining Everything Are Wrong!

Great interview!

Two quotes I thought were highlights:

12:00 of the second video, “I’m inclined to ask
to what extent is a posthumanist anticipation of a Singularity a
dangerous psychological blind spot where we are recycling the apocalyptic
imagery that is embedded at a very low level in the firmware of the
civilization that we live in.”

And at the end: “if anyone ever gives you a narrative about the
future, or the human condition , or the world we live in, that purports
to explain everything, and it is simple, elegant and appealing, and
internally consistent, it is almost certainly wrong. The real world is
complicated”

-What did you make, Socrates, of his change in opinion regarding the Singularity?

I think based on what he said it makes sense. Furthermore, I think his final message was indeed the most succinct yet eloquent criticism of the technological singularity in general and Ray Kurzweil in particular.

Yes, it is generally speaking the position of the Singularity Institute as well, and they focus on the problem of Ray’s notion ‘explaining everything’ and being ‘internally consistent’. They argue Ray gives too many details in his prediction (because he has predictions about all the sciences and the culture at each given stage) and that we should be weary of future predictions like that because although they may sound plausible (because they sound like a story with all the details filled in) the likelihood about being correct goes down with each detail you add to the story. (called the ‘conjunction fallacy’). It is easy to get carried away in predicting the future, and even though having more minimal predictions with less certainty is not as appealing on some levels, I can’t help but feel as though it is the best track to be on.

We are lucky the world is naturally complicated.
This allows differentiation and increases opportunities. Saying that
singularity is a sort of religion, implies that a forecast about its
timing is uncertain.It is true, however, that the key elements able
to trigger singularity - computers, biology, genetic engineering, micro
engineering - will be fully available in about 20-30 years. Others, like
AI or nanorobotics, are still to come, thus any forecast can only be
hard. Is AI really necessary to trigger singularity? Or are
sufficient other systems, like the entry of India, China and Africa
among the advanced countries? I guess that singularity can begin with or
without the support of AI. But only superintelligences can boost
it, on condition we know how to build them together with the environment
they can interact with, in order to achieve the maximum rate of
progress (and not destruction). Yes, the world is definitely
complicated. But this complication is a blessing, because of the many
hidden degrees of freedom that may be used by sufficiently intelligent
beings as levers.

i got the strange feeling you think the internet
is a precursor to heaven and A.I.s will be lazy things that only want to
drink piña-coladas by the swimming pool - really lacking any respect
for the money motivation/fear factor lol

I am sorry, Mr. Santini, but I don’t understand your point when you said “the key elements able
to trigger singularity - computers, biology, genetic engineering, micro
engineering - will be fully available in about 20-30 years”: 1. How are the items of your list “key elements” of singularity, and not the items of the second list - AI&nanorobotics; 2. Aren’t the items of the aforementioned list  “fully available” now? What are they missing in order to be so right now?

Question: How the vision provided by the Three Patriarchs of Singularity(Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross and Alastair Reynolds, by the way, when an interview with the autor of “Revelation Space”?) be compared with the Deluge of statistics whose wellspring is the wellknown Mr. Kurzweil?

A sheer delight to hear the autor of “Accelerando” - when I read the book, I couldn’t digest all the ideas and insights of it. Together with Vinge’s trilogy and Alastair Reynolds “Revelation Space”, it is a compelling perspective of a plausible future. This interview clarified couple of things about the background of both the autor and the novel.