From: Ricardo Barreira (rbarreira@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Jun 01 2006 - 08:28:37 MDT
This couldn't come in a more appropriate moment :)
Here is what I think - only people who know english well and surf the
net regularly are likely to learn about the singularity. In the
country where I come from (Portugal), this means that many intelligent
and well educated people are very unlikely to have heard about the
singularity. According to my searches, there are a few translations of
The Age of Spiritual Machines but only to some languages. I have sent
a mail to Kurzweil asking about upcoming translations of his newest
book, which he forwarded to his literary agent, from whom I haven't
received a reply yet. I would be willing to pressure national book
editors and/or do the translation myself and find a publisher but as
of now, I have no idea whether this would be possible and what the
legal factors involved are.
Another possible problem is that such revolutionary ideas aren't
accepted easily if you just have one source to read from. It was much
easier for me to understand them after reading several perspectives
around many sites; but in reality, I don't know how much of a problem
this is because I didn't have that experience.
PS: Another question - is most of the public prepared to receive the
idea of the Singularity? I suppose the answer is yes; probably no
rioting will happen in short term because most people will simply
assume that it will never happen. In the long term, I don't know...
And I don't know if it's safe to assume that it will be like
acceptance of all other technological revolutions, because this one,
by definition, is quite different in nature.
On 6/1/06, Joshua Fox <joshua@joshuafox.com> wrote:
> Anyone want to venture a guess on the public awareness of the
> Singularity in, say, 2010 or 2015?
>
> I'm wondering if the Singularity will
> (1) remain the province of a few hundred or a few thousand
> super-technologically-aware types (like, e.g., hints of possibilities
> for faster-than-light spaceflight today);
> (2) or spread into the awareness of hundreds of thousands or millions of
> educated people (like, e.g. private space travel or nanotech today);
> (3) or become a major social issue followed by tens or hundreds of
> millions (like, e.g., genetically engineered food or nuclear power today).
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Joshua
>
>
>
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