По причине скорого отъезда решил рассортировать содержимое жёсткого диска и наткнулся на статью. Откуда взял - не помню, но Виндж - товарищ авторитетный (т.к. я где-то о нём слышал раньше

). На английском, правда..
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The Coming Technological Singularity:
How to Survive in the Post-Human Era
Vernor Vinge
Department of Mathematical Sciences
San Diego State University
(c) 1993 by Vernor Vinge
(Verbatim copying/translation and distribution of this
entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this
notice is preserved.)
The original version of this article
was presented at the VISION-21 Symposium
sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and
the Ohio Aerospace Institute, March 30-31, 1993.
A slightly changed version appeared in the
Winter 1993 issue of _Whole Earth Review_.
Abstract
Within thirty years, we will have the technological
means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after,
the human era will be ended.
Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can
events be guided so that we may survive? These questions
are investigated. Some possible answers (and some further
dangers) are presented.
_What is The Singularity?_
The acceleration of technological progress has been the central
feature of this century. I argue in this paper that we are on the edge
of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise
cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of
entities with greater than human intelligence. There are several means
by which science may achieve this breakthrough (and this is another
reason for having confidence that the event will occur):
o There may be developed computers that are "awake" and
superhumanly intelligent. (To date, there has been much
controversy as to whether we can create human equivalence in a
machine. But if the answer is "yes, we can", then there is little
doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly
thereafter.)
o Large computer networks (and their associated users) may "wake
up" as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
o Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users
may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.
o Biological science may provide means to improve natural
human intellect.
The first three possibilities depend in large part on
improvements in computer hardware. Progress in computer hardware has
followed an amazingly steady curve in the last few decades [17]. Based
largely on this trend, I believe that the creation of greater than
human intelligence will occur during the next thirty years. (Charles
Platt [20] has pointed out that AI enthusiasts have been making claims
like this for the last thirty years. Just so I'm not guilty of a
relative-time ambiguity, let me more specific: I'll be surprised if
this event occurs before 2005 or after 2030.)
What are the consequences of this event? When greater-than-human
intelligence drives progress, that progress will be much more rapid.
In fact, there seems no reason why progress itself would not involve
the creation of still more intelligent entities -- on a still-shorter
time scale. The best analogy that I see is with the evolutionary past:
Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster
than natural selection can do its work -- the world acts as its own
simulator in the case of natural selection. We humans have the ability
to internalize the world and conduct "what if's" in our heads; we can
solve many problems thousands of times faster than natural selection.
Now, by creating the means to execute those simulations at much higher
speeds, we are entering a regime as radically different from our human
past as we humans are from the lower animals.
From the human point of view this change will be a throwing away
of all the previous rules, perhaps in the blink of an eye, an
exponential runaway beyond any hope of control.
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