Claim · 1992 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Moravec's essay of 1992 states that cyberspace will be filled with disembodied superminds whose affairs are to human concerns as human concerns are to those of bacteria.

One recorded claim. The claim panel gives its qualification, the source passages with their place in each source, and how it was checked.

What it connects

Pigs in Cyberspace → articulates → Superiority by many orders of magnitude

Where it appears

Machine succession, scale and acceleration: propositions in located texts, 1979–2026 →

Claim and evidence

Pigs in Cyberspacearticulates ↓Superiority by many orders of magnitude

Machine-checkedStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1992 · publication Records dated 1992 →
Wording attested: 2026-10-31. Wording read in the copy retrieved on 2026-10-31. An Internet Archive capture of 1999-04-27 exists but could not be compared, since the Internet Archive refused the research pack's retrievals; if the capture is found identical, the wording is attested from 1999-04-27. Not compared with any printed version.
Role: Articulation
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction

Scope and limitsThe gap is stated by analogy (humans to bacteria), not as a numerical factor; the superminds include transformed human minds.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Pigs in Cyberspace

Hans Moravec (author-hosted HTML); the author's publication list gives Thinking Robots, an aware internet and cyberpunk librarians (LITA, 1992), pp. 15-21, and Extropy 10 (January 1993) · 1992

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt

“So, one way or another, the immensities of cyberspace will be teeming with very unhuman disembodied superminds, engaged in affairs of the future that are to human concerns as ours are to those of bacteria.”

Location in source Section "Mind without Body?", near the end

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-11-01

Source details and check notes

Authors: Hans Moravec
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31 (SHA-256 967f23fd6f6c2cd1bc5cc2458f89bca80d4e7f9b9d15e96dbf00e8ea08e49e54). Author-hosted HTML headed "Pigs in Cyberspace Hans Moravec 1992". Exponents are flattened in the cached text (for example "1056" for 10^56). Earliest capture located: 1999-04-27 (not compared). Printed versions not inspected.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-31
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Hans Moravec, “Pigs in Cyberspace”, 1992.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage, machine succession, scale and acceleration (research/heterodox-thought). The quotation (35 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. No human editorial review.

Status and meaning

Editorial status. Machine-checked. Machines found this record and checked it against its sources; no person accepted it individually. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.

Relation. A passage of the document meets the proposition’s criterion. The record documents what the text states, in its register (fiction and satire are labelled); it is not evidence that the proposition is true and implies no influence on or from another text.

Date. Year on the author's page; the publication list gives April 1992 and the LITA volume of 1992.

Record ID ht-w05-moravec-1992-pigs-in-cyberspace