Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> *My* hoped-for timeline:
>
> 1999-2007: Nothing much happens.
How about, Eliezer starts the Singularity Institute, Eliezer writes some distributed computing software, Eliezer does something to impress us so we'll all donate our spare CPU cycles, and so on. It's the mundane stuff leading up to the cool stuff that really counts ('cos, like who wants to do the mundane stuff? - not me for sure).
> July 5th, 2007: The Singularity Institute requests use of
> January's Planetary Computing Day. Since the Singularity
> Institute was responsible for the custom of PCD in the
> first place - donating all the spare CPU cycles on the
> planet to a charity on the eighth of each month - it *just
> so happens* that the people who run Planetary Computing
> Day are all Singularitarians. The request is granted, as
> it is every year.
PCD sound like a good holiday, but it needs a fluffy mascot, like Eli the Ineffable Elephant, or something.
> July 6th, 2007: The Singularity Institute announces that
> they're testing an AI. The press release uses the words
> "self-understanding" and a lot of technobabble.
> Absolutely nobody uses the words "Singularity" or
> "transcend".
Well, the press release will almost certainly say 'Singularity' in it somewhere, since it's from the Singularity Institute an' all.
> [...]
BM