All Vernor Vinge Quotes
- What we have is a data glut. Data
- 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… All
- Sometimes the biggest disasters aren't noticed at all - no one's around to write horror stories. All
- 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,… Beating
- Once upon a time I was such a good liar; I could talk the fish right into my mouths. Fish
- Technical people don't make good slaves. Without their wholehearted cooperation, things fall apart. Apart
- Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all. All
- Little fish risking everything for a piece of godhood...and not knowing heaven from hell, even when they find it. Find
- We’re long on high principles and short on simple human understanding. High
- All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that cannot be twisted… Admire
- The illusion of self-awareness. Happy automatons, running on trivial programs. I'll bet you never guess. From the inside, how can you? Automatons
- Note that I am not proposing that AI research be ignored or less funded. Ai Research
- We will soon create intelligences greater than our own ... When this happens, human history will have reached a kind of singularity, an intellectual transition… Beyond
- Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. Create
- Here I had tried a straightforward extrapolation of technology, and found myself precipitated over an abyss. It's a problem we face every time we consider… Abyss
- In fact, there was general agreement that minds can exist on nonbiological substrates and that algorithms are of central importance to the existence of minds. Agreement
- We humans have millions of years of evolutionary baggage that makes us regard competition in a deadly light. Baggage
- Another symptom of progress toward the Singularity: ideas themselves should spread ever faster, and even the most radical will quickly become commonplace. Another Symptom
- I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. Argue
- 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… Began
- The dilemma felt by science fiction writers will be perceived in other creative endeavors. Creative
- I have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an inevitable consequence of the humans natural competitiveness and the possibilities… Argued
- Pham Nuwen plunked himself down, stretching indolently. Down
- Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work - the world acts as its… Acts
- But every time our ability to access information and to communicate it to others is improved, in some sense we have achieved an increase over… Ability