Really, the singularity is about one and only one thing -- the apparent trend we've been seeing of the rate of techonological progress increasing as time went on, rather than going at a constant rate or leveling off. "the singularity" is the concept that this trend, if it goes on, will result in an unamiaginable rate of change -- if one sees it as an upwards curve, eventually it can hit a limit such that, say, as the date approaches 2100, the change (not the rate of change) approaches infinity -- what happens after that, or at that time, is the classic singularity.
I don't think that any particular change can be postulated at that point, just that it's unimaginable in practice.
Obviously, there are a bunch of SF authors running around with "The Singularity" as their central thesis/problem, Vinge particularly among them. But near as I can tell, the best of them -aren't- writing about the singularity as much as taking it as a given (however true or untrue that may be; I'm somewhat sceptical) and then writing around the concept rather than through it.
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Date: 2003-10-02 12:01 pm (UTC)I don't think that any particular change can be postulated at that point, just that it's unimaginable in practice.
Obviously, there are a bunch of SF authors running around with "The Singularity" as their central thesis/problem, Vinge particularly among them. But near as I can tell, the best of them -aren't- writing about the singularity as much as taking it as a given (however true or untrue that may be; I'm somewhat sceptical) and then writing around the concept rather than through it.