Philcon2000, 17-19 November 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Author Guest of Honor Speech
Presented by Vernor Vinge
sat-18-nov-16:00
In _Marooned in Realtime_ (fic, 1986) Vinge describes a TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY, the asymptote of exponentially increasing human/AI capability, after which things are Very Different. The notion has gained currency among futurists and tech enthusiasts.
Gregory Stock in _Metaman_ (nonfic, 1993) posits that the Earth's biosphere, population and techbase have already evolved into a superorganism with a drive for self-preservation. Following that notion, it's possible the Singularity could occur without our notice; collaboration might simply increase until the ensemble behavior is superhuman (if not self-aware).
Marc Stiegler in _Earthweb_ (fic, 1999) uses the concept of IDEA FUTURES, in which financial speculators bet not on the price of commodities, but on the odds of events (political, technological, &c) transpiring.
"In a sense, a high-level technological civilization is a creativity engine,"
Vinge continues. With sufficient collaboration, a nation could implement a "just-in-time military" that would select its hardware as-needed, always getting the best and latest. Such a system could be militarily unassailable; its only vulnerability would be its "higher senses."
Eg an opponent could appeal to the moral sensibilities of its components/citizens.
In the past, complex problems were solved with complex mechanisms, but today we have simple mechanisms driven by computers. Compare the linkages behind the printball of an IBM Selectric typewriter with the printhead of an inkjet printer. On the other hand, a car with electronic fuel injection can be much harder to diagnose than one with timing belt, camshaft and valves. Embedded controls/systems are "the hidden glue holding the technological world together."
Now enable the embedded controls to communicate, and you get "the fuzzy fringe of the internet." Eventually, internet:embsys::fish:plankton. Today, the accessibility of GPS transmissions is the root of any number of applications unforeseen by the original designers. One study indicates it can be used to determine not only the position and altitude of an aircraft, but also its attitude, by placing receivers at multiple points (nose, tail, wingtips) and noting their differential locations.
Now extend the notion of GPS. Rather than many receivers each listening to the signals of a few satellites, make every device a transceiver, emitting an identity-coded signal. Using UWB (ultrawideband) RF, vast numbers of these devices could be used in a small area without violating FCC interference regs. Each of these LOCALIZERS would determine its position relative to the others with simple time-of-flight calculations, and though its individual range is short, packet-relay networking unbounds it.
Like GPS, cheap ubiquitous localizers could have unexpected benefits. Vinge cited his membership in an HMI (human-machine interface) conference panel with fellow authors M.Swanwick and B.Sterling. Place a localizer on each item of your personal property (the idea went), and you couldn't misplace them; thus liberating your attention for other pursuits. Assembly robots now use complex vision systems to determine the position and orientation of a workpiece; but with a localizer, the workpiece itself could direct the robot where it is. As with the inkjet printheads, a heterogenous solution evolves to simple software.
Localizers are one technology that allows you to "postpone irrevocable decisions." You could have have instant/throwaway telecom infrastructure, by airdropping solar-powered high-bandwidth localizers across the service area. (This creates a new form of pollution, in the shape of localizers that fall into shadowed areas.) Wearable computers with HUDs (heads-up displays) could map a virtual GUI onto any surface. A room of huds-wearing people could collaborate in "consensus imagery", with their localizers providing the positional data to seamlessly map graphics onto the live background, updated fast/precisely enough to track head movement.
Most of the old bad things can still happen, but they can be ameliorated by the fuzzy internet. In the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the Japanese emergency communications system quickly failed -- but radios and human-carried laptops still worked. Then there are the new bad things: "criminal illusion"
, "remote domination"
, "ubiquitous law enforcement"
; even someone "suborning your refrigerator"
. Plus, there's now a single point of failure: the EMP of a nuke airblast could kill embsys over a wide area.
Vinge proposes some backups to the useful-but-opaque technology of embsys and localizers. Consumers can encourage manufacturers to produce non-embsys products, devices comprehensible with 1900-level tech. The SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) practices with techniques through 1650, but an analagous hobbyist movement could maintain knowledge of pre-microprocessor technologies through, say, 1950.
See also: