John_Maxwell_IV comments on New Singularity.org - Less Wrong

14 Post author: lukeprog 18 June 2012 02:29PM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 19 June 2012 04:16:42AM *  7 points [-]

E.g. you could have a page called "An Academic Introduction to the Singularity" and start by quoting IJ good to clarify the meaning of "singularity", then David Chalmers:

One might think that the singularity would be of great interest to academic philosophers, cognitive scientists, and artificial intelligence researchers. In practice, this has not been the case. [I.J. Good] was an eminent academic, but his article was largely unappreciated at the time. The subsequent discussion of the singularity has largely taken place in nonacademic circles, including Internet forums, popular media and books, and workshops organized by the independent Singularity Institute. Perhaps the highly speculative flavor of the singularity idea has been responsible for academic resistance.

I think this resistance is a shame, as the singularity idea is clearly an important one. The argument for a singularity is one that we should take seriously. And the questions surrounding the singularity are of enormous practical and philosophical concern.

In general, IMO you should be quoting more high status people, to quickly demonstrate that the ideas you research are worth paying attention to. E.g. the video interview you used to have with Peter Norvig (and possibly others in that series of video interviews; why were those removed by the way?), Summit speakers, and the high status people Luke references on the Facing the Singularity homepage.