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"I had a big problem," says Vinge. "I had to back off from certain things, like anything Internet-like. It was a very big challenge, but it was fun."

The Internet isn't the only thing prominently absent in "A Deepness in the Sky." Vinge is famous not just for jumping the gun on cyberspace -- he's also well-known for his views on the potential impact of what he calls "the technological singularity."

"The singularity" occurs in that moment when computers become intelligent enough to upgrade themselves. Self-programming computers will have, argues Vinge, a learning curve that points straight up. In a very short time they will become transcendently intelligent and remodel civilization as they please. We might need to make a few adjustments.

The possibility for a technological singularity depends, of course, on the assumption that computers can become intelligent. But "A Deepness in the Sky," says Vinge, "is a look at what the universe would be like if the technological optimists are not right."

"The story takes place in a universe where computers can't become more powerful than a certain level," says Vinge. "It's the sort of universe that I think most people believe in right now -- that we'll make computers smarter and smarter, but beyond a certain level there will always be things that computers can't do. Well, this is the universe where that is so. Very large software problems can't be solved."

Vinge, a math professor who teaches computer science at San Diego State, is convinced that the "problem of software complexity" is the main obstacle that programmers face in creating intelligent computers. But he certainly doesn't rule out that possibility, even if there's no sign of success in "A Deepness in the Sky." He is quick to note that the current pace of progress, particularly in the area of networking, is beginning to rev up.

We're only beginning to see the results of what "a high level of integration and of networking" can accomplish, says Vinge. "If a person were to come back in three or five years -- provided we don't have a disaster -- I would say that the change in our view of [the potential of] networking will be as great as it would be if we look from now to, say, 1985."

Who knows? the Net may already be linking humans and machines together into an embryonic super-intelligence. Vinge agrees that the rise of the open-source software development model -- which links thousands of programmers together via the Net in massively collaborative software creation projects -- offers hope that our collective intelligence may be increasing.

"The Net is removing the various frictions that have kept people from collaborating," says Vinge, with relish. "It has had an extraordinary effect."

Of course, we may not all be so happy with the Net's extraordinary effects, if the result is trans-human intelligence that reduces us to the role of hamsters in a new evolutionary order. But that's just the stuff of science fiction. Right?
salon.com | April 5, 1999

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