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The work that is truly productive is the domain of a steadily smaller and more elite fraction of humanity.

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
Productive
Truly
Fraction
Humanity
Fractions
Work
Steadily
Elite
Domain
Elites
Smaller

More quotes by Vernor Vinge

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The physical extinction of the human race is one possibility.
Vernor Vinge
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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
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Note that I am not proposing that AI research be ignored or less funded.
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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What we have is a data glut.
Vernor Vinge
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All his life he had lived by the law. Often his job had been to stop acts of revenge....And now revenge was all that life had left for him.
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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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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Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change.
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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I say, let's learn more and then speculate.
Vernor Vinge
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How to explain? How to describe? Even the omniscient viewpoint quails.
Vernor Vinge
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Technical people don't make good slaves. Without their wholehearted cooperation, things fall apart.
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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Poor humans they will all die.Poor us we will not.
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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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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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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IA is something that is proceeding very naturally, in most cases not even recognized by its developers for what it is.
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