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The physical extinction of the human race is one possibility.

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
Extinction
Physical
Possibility
Race
Human
Humans

More quotes by Vernor Vinge

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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
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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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How to explain? How to describe? Even the omniscient viewpoint quails.
Vernor Vinge
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I have come to kill you.The death's heads shrugged. You have come to try.
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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?
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Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.
Vernor Vinge
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Peregrine Wickwrackscar was flying. A pilgrim with legends that went back almost a thousand years-and not one of them could come near to this!
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.
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Once upon a time I was such a good liar I could talk the fish right into my mouths.
Vernor Vinge
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When people speak of creating superhumanly intelligent beings, they are usually imagining an AI project.
Vernor Vinge
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The illusion of self-awareness. Happy automatons, running on trivial programs. I'll bet you never guess. From the inside, how can you?
Vernor Vinge
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We humans have millions of years of evolutionary baggage that makes us regard competition in a deadly light.
Vernor Vinge
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Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change.
Vernor Vinge
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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
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But if the technological Singularity can happen, it will.
Vernor Vinge
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Well, what do you know, Pham said. Butterflies in jackboots.
Vernor Vinge
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He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind - but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.
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.
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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So much technology, so little talent.
Vernor Vinge