Stephen Wolfram on the Singularity

During the live webcast on Wolfram|Alpha on September 17, 2009, a question asked by many participants in the online chat was what Stephen Wolfram thought about the Technological Singularity. Without touching upon the more controversial claims of those who foresee extreme change in the next few decades, Stephen described how tools like Mathematica, now Wolfram|Alpha, and the principles in A New Kind Of Science enabled him to better understand what's ahead.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• wolframalpha
• stephenwolfram
• singularity
• accelerating
• change
• complexity
• computation
• forecasting
• future

[particleion]

"Creativity becomes cheap because we will mine it from the computational universe"

Does this mean that we will become more creative with increased technology or less creative as creativity itself becomes a computational task?

[davidorban]

@particleion My guess is the we will indeed become more creative. It will stop to be the exclusive reign of a restricted class of "artists"... Just as the printing press opened writing and reading to a larger group, and blogs to an even larger one... An additional element important in this is that of 3D Printing and nanofabrication to turn your ideas into physical objects.

[Xeletoph]

Umm, actually no. Most of our current capital based system is based strongly on what marx taught. The whole slave driving fiat based monetary system was thought up by him entirely. If you knew anything about economics you'd know that already. I'm against marxism because I'm against the cyclical monetary system - as its slavery and people can do better without it. I never said anything about religion here, so essentially what you've done is shoot at a ghost ; fire away, but you miss the target.

[johntkooz]

The blockiness graphics are appropriate. He looks (and already sounds) more like a character from Waking Life now haha.

[stikmanaa]

I think he meant " the poets explain everything in rhyme"

[matijakasij]

@poetdom What do poets explain, and please give some past examples of this everything, Thanks

[Blacklemon67a]

@johntkooz lol

[pinkfloyddwc]

@johntkooz lol true :D

[Consciousish]

@davidorban Definitely...

And there is no way we will become less creative. This program has the monumental task of grappling with a sentient brain that has evolved over millions of years. With so much in our genetic code, where we get creativity from extends in both directions, past and future...

[poetdom]

Remain calm.

The poets explain everything in time.

Everything is important.changes,is connected. So pay attention!

[poetdom]

Remain calm.

The poets explain everything in time.

[spazdor]

@particleion @davidorban I expect that's how it's going to be for the remainder of our creative history: New creativity becomes understood, after it's understood it will become 'tool-ified', and new artists will come up with artful ways of using or combining the tools. And the old artists who used to claim as 'their' creativity that which the tools now do automatically, they'll deride the new ones as hacks. And then someone will take *that* combination of tools, and make a tool out of it.