# Vernor Vinge **Entity class:** Person / mathematician and science-fiction writer **Relevant work:** [[wiki/The Coming Technological Singularity|The Coming Technological Singularity]] (1993) **Institutional affiliation at publication:** Department of Mathematical Sciences, San Diego State University ## Definition Vernor Vinge articulated a 1993 technological-singularity argument in which intelligence beyond the human level could change the conditions of prediction, competition, and social organization. His essay includes both strong forecasts and uncertainty about what a post-human era would mean for those initiating it. The 2005–2030 timing claim is a historical prediction, not a present-day event record. ## Relationships - **Authored source:** [[wiki/The Coming Technological Singularity|The Coming Technological Singularity]] was presented at the VISION-21 symposium in March 1993 and later appeared in a slightly changed *Whole Earth Review* version. - **Intellectual source:** Vinge quotes [[wiki/I. J. Good|I. J. Good]] on an intelligence explosion; quotation through Vinge is not Good's direct authorship of Vinge's argument. - **Corpus routes:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]], [[articles/AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor|AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor]], and [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]]. - **Text provenance:** [Author's university-hosted essay](https://edoras.sdsu.edu/~vinge/misc/singularity.html).