Re: extropians-digest V1 #110

Robin Hanson (hanson@hss.caltech.edu)
Sun, 17 Nov 96 14:05:02 PST


Eliezer Yudkowsky writes:
>The essence of the Singularity is that a smarter being has an
>increased capacity to invent still smarter beings; that's why
>everything goes to infinity. ...
>Computer power doubles every two years.
>Computer power doubles every two *subjective* years.
>Computer power goes to infinity four years after computer researchers
>reach human equivalence.
>Mathematically, I believe it's called a "singularity".
>You don't need enhanced smartness to outrun *any* task no matter
>*how* it scales up, all you need is recursive Moore's Law.

1. Computer power does not equal smartness.
2. You'll need a bit more detailed argument to show that computer power
doubles every two subjective years.

Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/