Quote

When I began writing science fiction in the middle 60s, it seemed very easy to find ideas that took decades to percolate into the cultural consciousness now the lead time seems more like eighteen months.

Vernor Vinge

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Vernor Vinge
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: October 2
Computer Scientist
Mathematician
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Waukesha
Wisconsin
Vernor Steffen Vinge
Find
Months
Percolate
Writing
Fiction
Eighteen
Time
Consciousness
Cultural
Like
Middle
Decades
Easy
Began
Science
Seemed
Seems
Lead
Ideas
Took

More quotes by Vernor Vinge

Image
Technical people don't make good slaves. Without their wholehearted cooperation, things fall apart.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
Vernor Vinge
Image
And for all my rampant technological optimism, sometimes I think I'd be more comfortable if I were regarding these transcendental events from one thousand years remove... instead of twenty.
Vernor Vinge
Image
I have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an inevitable consequence of the humans natural competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Politics may come and go, but Greed goes on forever.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.
Vernor Vinge
Image
He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind - but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Once upon a time I was such a good liar I could talk the fish right into my mouths.
Vernor Vinge
Image
I say, let's learn more and then speculate.
Vernor Vinge
Image
The work that is truly productive is the domain of a steadily smaller and more elite fraction of humanity.
Vernor Vinge
Image
I never guessed I could cry so hard my face hurt.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Note that I am not proposing that AI research be ignored or less funded.
Vernor Vinge
Image
The physical extinction of the human race is one possibility.
Vernor Vinge
Image
But every time our ability to access information and to communicate it to others is improved, in some sense we have achieved an increase over natural intelligence.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work - the world acts as its own simulator in the case of natural selection.
Vernor Vinge
Image
But if the technological Singularity can happen, it will.
Vernor Vinge
Image
I have come to kill you.The death's heads shrugged. You have come to try.
Vernor Vinge
Image
The heart of manipulation is to empathize without being touched.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Poor humans they will all die.Poor us we will not.
Vernor Vinge
Image
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