[tim333]

For what it's worth the original tech singularity idea was from John von Neumann in the 1950s:

“The ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life give the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.”

Which I guess is kind of in the eye of the beholder.

That said he misrepresents Kurzweil a bit with "if you're Kurzweil all the curves are exponential and they're going up. And right now is a special time." Kurzweil has already said the singularity will be about 2045 and now is not a special time in that way.

[Banana699]

When you consider the fact that Kurzweil's exponentials routinely begin anywhere from 100 thousand years ago to the early 1900s, and they all end somewhere in or before the 2050s, then 30 years before the 2050s (now) is indeed implied to be very special. The moment _just_ _before_ the vertical is as important as the vertical itself.