Futurist prediction methods and accuracy

Re:Futurist prediction methods and accuracy by abecedarius on Tuesday September 13, 2022 @07:05PM (#32831275)

That didn't quite match my memory of Vinge, so fwiw I just checked the two earliest publications I know of:

> Such trend-curves... extrapolated 30 or 40 years they are so high and steep that even the most naive futurist discounts their accuracy.

(That's the closest therein to a specific prediction date, from 1983: https://imgur.com/a/HrUxGts)

> let me more specific: I'll be surprised if this event occurs before 2005 or after 2030.

From 1993: https://edoras.sdsu.edu/~vinge/misc/singularity.html

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Re:Futurist prediction methods and accuracy by goatlover on Tuesday September 13, 2022 @07:49PM (#32831582)

Okay, maybe I remembered it wrong, or someone else gave that range. Vinge has about 8 more years to be surprised.

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Re:Futurist prediction methods and accuracy by TigeriusKirk on Tuesday September 13, 2022 @10:20PM (#32832568)

Specifically he would be surprised if there isn't a computer with greater than human intelligence by 2030.

It's interesting that 29 years after he said that, and 8 years remaining on the timeline, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility.

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Re:Futurist prediction methods and accuracy by abecedarius on Wednesday September 14, 2022 @01:00AM (#32833487)

One of the example possibilities mentioned in one of his essays or interviews was, what if with some poorly-understood tweaks to neural network training, it started working much better at scale? At the time I thought he was really reaching with that one.

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