Daniel H. Wilson Quotes

I have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an inevitable consequence of the humans' natural competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology.

I basically look at how exponential emerging technological changes runs counter-intuitive to the way our linear brains make projections about change, and so we don't realize how fast the future is coming.

Technology changes all the time; human nature, hardly ever.

You can't stop technology or science, and it is snowballing quicker than ever. Something's got to come to a head. How? Who knows? But it will.

I don't think that a Singularity would be visible to those going through one. Even the most disruptive changes are not universally or immediately distributed, and late followers learn from the reactions and dilemmas of those who had initially encountered the disruptive change.

Stone Age. Bronze Age. Iron Age. We define entire epics of humanity by the technology they use.

If you think about some of the things that are being talked about by thoughtful, intelligent scientists, you realize that in 100 years the human race won't even be recognizable.

The computer is my favourite invention. I feel lucky to be part of the global village. I don't mean to brag, but I'm so fast with technology. People think it all seems too much, but we'll get used to it. I'm sure it all seemed too much when we were learning to walk.

Especially in technology, we need revolutionary change, not incremental change.

Machines and their development provide the greatest opportunity in the whole history of mankind to improve the lot of the individual human being.

One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.

The entire human race faced a singularity when one small group discovered, ooh, technology. We can live a different way. Eventually, that spelled the death of the old way of life.

I don't think things are moving toward an omega point; I think they're moving toward more diversity.

Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.

Anything that could give rise to smarter-than-human intelligence - in the form of Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, or neuroscience-based human intelligence enhancement - wins hands down beyond contest as doing the most to change the world. Nothing else is even in the same league.

If you trace the history of mankind, our evolution has been mediated by technology, and without technology it's not really obvious where we would be. So I think we have always been cyborgs in this sense.

Men are weak now, and yet they transform the Earth's surface. In millions of years, their might will increase to the extent that they will change the surface of the Earth, its oceans, the atmosphere, and themselves.

With the emergence of civilization, the rate of change shifted from hundreds of thousands of years to millennia. With the emergence of science as a way of knowing the universe, the rate of change shifted to centuries.

People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn't they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines... There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.

I think a lot of people are frightened of technology and frightened of change, and the way to deal with something you're frightened of is to make fun of it. That's why science fiction fans are dismissed as geeks and nerds.

Tech is a funny industry; I don't think there is any other industry on the planet that reinvents itself every 10-12 years.

Science, which has transformed the material world, gives man the power of transforming himself.

The advancement of the arts (technology) from year to year taxes our credulity, and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end.

With science, technology and globalization, man is changing the world faster than his evolution can keep up with the new dangers.

Through writing, Homo sapiens then became the first species to preserve learning, enabling knowledge to grow, ultimately at an exponential pace. Collective learning over time then became the source of technological improvement, a process that could move much faster than evolution.