[...] the Singularity. [...] The idea was conceived by Vernor Vinge, a computer scientist and science-fiction writer whoâs now a professor emeritus at San Diego State University. Weâre living through a period of unprecedented technological and scientific advances, Vinge says, and sometime soon the convergence of fields such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology will push humanity past a tipping point, ushering in a period of wrenching change. After that momentâthe Singularityâthe world will be as different from todayâs world as this one is from the Stone Age.
[...] Vingeâs vision of the Singularity springs from his own field, computer science, but change is afoot throughout science and technology. Cosmology is undergoing fundamental revisions, genetics is giving researchers the tools to rejigger the building blocks of life, and nanotechnology has begun creeping from fantasy into reality. âSeveral lines of progress [are] converging,â says physicist Stanley Schmidt, editor of Analog magazine. âYou canât lock in on one field in isolation because youâll miss how other fields affect it.â
A new kind of future requires a new breed of guideâsomeone like Stross, whose first novel, Singularity Sky, was recently nominated for a prestigious Hugo Award, or his frequent collaborator Cory Doctorow, who in 2000 won the Campbell Award for best new science-fiction writer. Both are former computer programmers. They are computer geeks and gadget freaks. They follow engineering and materials science and biotech, not to mention politics and economics. And they have latched on to the Singularity as the idea that symbolizes our eraâs rush of new discoveries. Whether their stories will usher in another golden age or inspire a new generation of dreamers remains to be seen, but their focus is dead-on. âRight now is an extremely exciting time because thereâs an explosion of knowledge in biology, an explosion of knowledge in technology, an explosion of knowledge in astronomy, physics, all over the place,â says David G. Hartwell, a senior editor at Tor Books. [...]â
The article compares the singularity with the invention of agriculture -- human society changed in ways that the hunter-gatherer could not have predicted. Today's explosions of knowledge seem to me to be a new renaissance.