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Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change.

Vernor Vinge

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Vernor Vinge
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: October 2
Computer Scientist
Mathematician
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Waukesha
Wisconsin
Vernor Steffen Vinge
Flexibility
Intelligence
Change
Handmaiden

More quotes by Vernor Vinge

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Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
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In fact, there was general agreement that minds can exist on nonbiological substrates and that algorithms are of central importance to the existence of minds.
Vernor Vinge
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One of his greatest talents was empathy no sadist can aspire to perfection without that diagnostic ability.
Vernor Vinge
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Politics may come and go, but Greed goes on forever.
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We humans have millions of years of evolutionary baggage that makes us regard competition in a deadly light.
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When people speak of creating superhumanly intelligent beings, they are usually imagining an AI project.
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The voice was gentle, like a scalpel petting the short hairs of your throat.
Vernor Vinge
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Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.
Vernor Vinge
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Another symptom of progress toward the Singularity: ideas themselves should spread ever faster, and even the most radical will quickly become commonplace.
Vernor Vinge
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I never guessed I could cry so hard my face hurt.
Vernor Vinge
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The heart of manipulation is to empathize without being touched.
Vernor Vinge
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The problem is not simply that the Singularity represents the passing of humankind from center stage, but that it contradicts our most deeply held notions of being.
Vernor Vinge
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Politics is good when it works properly, disagreements get solved without people beating each other up. But when a regime knows its days are numbered, there's always the chance it may use its position to change the rules and make the debate it is losing irrelevant.
Vernor Vinge
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If there be only hours, at least learn what there is time to learn.
Vernor Vinge
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I say, let's learn more and then speculate.
Vernor Vinge
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Little fish risking everything for a piece of godhood...and not knowing heaven from hell, even when they find it.
Vernor Vinge
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Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.
Vernor Vinge
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Hexapodia as the key insight...I haven't had a chance to see the famous video from Straumli Realm, except as an evocation. (My only gateway onto the Net is very expensive.) Is it true that humans have six legs?
Vernor Vinge
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We’re long on high principles and short on simple human understanding.
Vernor Vinge
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Life is a green madness just now, trying to squeeze the last bit of warmth from the season.
Vernor Vinge