Interview With Scifi Writer Vernor Vinge

I came across this really interesting interview with noted scifi writer Vernor Vinge on YouTube. The interview was conducted by the Education Futures website (nice job on the interview!).

I have written about Mr. Vinge’s book Rainbow’s End before. In this new interview Mr. Vinge talks about the Singularity. This is a point in time where computers get smarter than people and therefore can direct their own evolution. In other words computers will begin programming themselves at an ever increasing rate.

This point in time then becomes an infection point past which we cannot predict what will happen because all of our predictions are based on known human capacities. Thinking machines change that.

He talks about education starting at time index 21:10. He thinks that schools shouldn’t teach facts and figures so much as how to learn.

Awesome!