By: Linus Torvalds (torvalds.delete@this.linux-foundation.org),
Room: Moderated Discussions
Mark Heath (none.delete@this.none.none) on May 17, 2024 4:23 pm wrote:
>
> Does this mean you don't believe in the idea of a technological singularity?
What serious person does?
It's a bedtime story for children. But unlike the very hungry caterpillar, it also makes for great click-bait stories that you can make up.
It makes a wonderful meme (in the original Dawkins' sense, not the "funny picture on the internet" sense), and has all the right ingredients of being simple enough to explain and spread, with all the right amount of emotional triggers, whether you are triggered by fear or by excitement by the future. You can make it utopian or dystopian, any which way you want.
So it makes a great self-spreading story.
As a SciFi concept, it is great. It was also timely in the sense that it resonates with people who have seen a lot of technological advancement and have had decades of stories of Moore's law hammered into them. So it superficially "makes sense", even though at a very fundamental level, the whole concept of continuous exponential growth cannot make sense in a reality with finite resources.
We are very much seeing the limits getting closer.
For the record, I also don't believe in crypto currencies (except as a great vehicle for scams - they have certainly worked very well for the "spread the word to find the next sucker holding the bag" model of Ponzi schemes). Nor do I believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, or the Easter bunny.
Linus
>
> Does this mean you don't believe in the idea of a technological singularity?
What serious person does?
It's a bedtime story for children. But unlike the very hungry caterpillar, it also makes for great click-bait stories that you can make up.
It makes a wonderful meme (in the original Dawkins' sense, not the "funny picture on the internet" sense), and has all the right ingredients of being simple enough to explain and spread, with all the right amount of emotional triggers, whether you are triggered by fear or by excitement by the future. You can make it utopian or dystopian, any which way you want.
So it makes a great self-spreading story.
As a SciFi concept, it is great. It was also timely in the sense that it resonates with people who have seen a lot of technological advancement and have had decades of stories of Moore's law hammered into them. So it superficially "makes sense", even though at a very fundamental level, the whole concept of continuous exponential growth cannot make sense in a reality with finite resources.
We are very much seeing the limits getting closer.
For the record, I also don't believe in crypto currencies (except as a great vehicle for scams - they have certainly worked very well for the "spread the word to find the next sucker holding the bag" model of Ponzi schemes). Nor do I believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, or the Easter bunny.
Linus
