From: charless@sco.COM (charles stross)
Subject: Re: Vinge's singularity
Organization: The Somewhat Contagious Operation, Inc.
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1992 08:11:51 GMT
Keywords: Malthus


In article <1992Aug30.153002.7674@sctc.com> beede@sctc.com (Mike Beede) writes:
>mwasson@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Michael Wasson) writes:
>
>
>>Videophones were first introduced--when, c1960? Nobody wants 'em.
>
>Well, to be a little more precise -- nobody wants to _pay_ for 'em.  I
>think if a videophone like the one in ``the movie pitchurs'' came
>along (i.e., reasonable definition and frame rate), and cost maybe two
>or three times what a traditional phone does, people would break down
>the doors for them.  The technology just isn't there to do it for
>little enough, yet.  Does this address the Singularity thread?  Nah --
>I just always wanted a videophone.

BZZT: misapplication of technology strikes again!

As I understand it, as far back as the early 60's AT&T tested a 
prototype videophone. The thing that killed it wasn't cost or
technology -- it was the sheer lack of imagination of the
researchers, who figured that the only reasonable market for such
a device (which had no business applications, right?) consisted
of housewives. So they rounded up a sample of housewives and
discovered, to their astonishment, that people who don't work for
a living and (then maybe more than now) put great store on
appearances _didn't_ want just anybody to be able to phone up 
and see them without their make-up and unprepared for public
appearances.

This is the bizarre but true tale of how the videophone got
canned: the only thing like it that I can think of is the
nineteenth century business mogul who agreed that the telephone
was an amazing step forward in commerce, had great business
potential, and soon every major city would have to have one. The
project was quite simply shut down through lack of imagination,
an inability to see the full potential of the development.

Last year, British Telecom announced a videophone system which is
now on sale in the UK. It costs about #700 (or $1400 at the
current conversion rate) for two units, and works by sending
something like 200 line 10Hz/refresh signals over an analogue
phone line, with data compression. Considering that 80% of the
phone exchanges in the UK now support ISDN, which is available to
private subscribers (although nobody I know has got it yet), this
technology is eminently practical in at least one country --
which is not one noted for world-leading telecoms breakthroughs,
either. It has also been suggested that the bottom line for
profitability would be a unit cost of under #100, or "two to
three times the cost of a conventional unit". Enough said?

>>>   I find it more interesting to consider that the singularity is a
>>>clear symptom of our civilization's blind spot:  we can't imagine what
>>>culture is going to follow ours, any more than any previous culture
>>>imagined ours.  The idea that we will dissolve in some kind of technologicaL
>>>Rapture probably reflects our current anxieties better than it reflects
>>>(or predicts) the future.
>
>Note that this is the previous poster's stuff....
>
>That _is_ interesting, but if we grant the premise
>(artificially-boosted intellects), it's not an unreasonable
>conclusion.  Why, look at how much smarter we all are since we started
>reading USENET!

This is an interesting point. Suppose that it becomes possible to
patch external neural networks into your brain directly; not
simply to give you access to cyberspace or whatever at a
perceptual level, but to actually augment the skills and
`learned' behaviour you have access to. What will it be like when
your black-belt judo reflexes are rented from the dojo, or your
doctorate in computer science is leased from IBM? Who _are_ you,
anyway? Are you simply the product of some neural network
annealing processes, that can be patched onto in software, or are
you something more? 

The issue with the singularity is that it raises profound
questions of identity, just as the industrial age raised profound
questions about the dichotomy between the human condition and
nature. And the answers aren't readily accessible if you examine
either question with only the tools available to the
pre-transition culture.


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