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“Staring into the Singularity”, version 1.2.1 (updated 31 August 2000), asks the reader to think about a visual cortex with trillions of times as many neuron-equivalents, and about attaching semantic primitives to the pixels so that one could see a rainbow of ideas as we see a rainbow of colours. Copy claim link
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Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source
Date 2000-08-31 · revision Records dated 2000 → Wording attested 2000-12-04. Wording of version 1.2.1 as captured on 4 December 2000, read in the raw replay by the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02. Claimed date 1996-11-18. The page’s “Created: 11/18/1996”; it does not authenticate the passages of version 1.2.1 to that day. Role Earliest located Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Scope and limits A hypothetical illustration of cognitive capacity, not a measured ratio. The trillions-fold figure concerns the neuron-equivalents of a visual cortex, not overall intelligence; reading it as cognitive capacity rests on the adjoining passage on semantic primitives. The wording is that of version 1.2.1 as captured on 4 December 2000; the page’s creation date of 18 November 1996 does not date it. Earliest located means the earliest text found by the collection’s searches, the cross-family re-check of 2026-11-02 and the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02, not a first statement.
The evidence 02 primary source Supports the claim
Staring into the Singularity (version 1.2.1) ↗ Eliezer S. Yudkowsky · 1996-11-18
Archived copy, captured 2000-12-04: Staring into the Singularity (version 1.2.1) ↗
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Source excerpt “Think about a visual cortex with trillions of times as many neuron-equivalents.” Location in source 2.1: The Definition of Smartness, paragraph beginning “Now think about the Singularity”, sentence beginning “Think about a visual cortex”
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-11-02
Source details and check notes Authors Eliezer S. Yudkowsky Version Version 1.2.1, "Updated: 08/31/2000", in the raw Internet Archive capture of 2000-12-04; retrieved 2026-10-06 with the hash recorded by the 1996–2022 candidate search. Personal website, sysopmind.com. Version date 2000-08-31 Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-06 Language English (en) Archive copy Open archived copy, captured 2000-12-04: Staring into the Singularity (version 1.2.1) ↗ . Captured 95 days after the recorded version date. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2000-12-04. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-06.Attribution Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, "Staring into the Singularity", version 1.2.1 (2000). 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 Quotation as given verbatim by the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02 (research/archive-fetch-held-2026-11-02/report.md, role 119), which read it in the raw replay of the capture of 4 December 2000 (timestamp 20001204213100; SHA-256 a883c7d611f7d6f5d3b64d6901e2086d4b33b3df9621927da6d70789a7302316 of the response body as served). That retrieval, by a model of another family, is the cross-family read of this passage; the session applying the decision could not reach the archive and took the passage from the report. The cross-family re-check of 2026-11-02 (review/earliest-located-recheck-2026-11-02.md, role 119) proposed this text for this proposition and role. Admitted by the maintainer’s decision of 2026-11-02. No human editorial review. primary source Supports the claim
Staring into the Singularity (version 1.2.1) ↗ Eliezer S. Yudkowsky · 1996-11-18
Archived copy, captured 2000-12-04: Staring into the Singularity (version 1.2.1) ↗
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Cite the original source Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.
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Source excerpt “Think about attaching semantic primitives to the pixels, so that one could see a rainbow of ideas in the same way that we see a rainbow of colors.” Location in source Same paragraph, final sentence
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-11-02
Source details and check notes Authors Eliezer S. Yudkowsky Version Version 1.2.1, "Updated: 08/31/2000", in the raw Internet Archive capture of 2000-12-04; retrieved 2026-10-06 with the hash recorded by the 1996–2022 candidate search. Personal website, sysopmind.com. Version date 2000-08-31 Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-06 Language English (en) Archive copy Open archived copy, captured 2000-12-04: Staring into the Singularity (version 1.2.1) ↗ . Captured 95 days after the recorded version date. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2000-12-04. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-06.Attribution Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, "Staring into the Singularity", version 1.2.1 (2000). 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 Quotation as given verbatim by the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02 (research/archive-fetch-held-2026-11-02/report.md, role 119), which read it in the raw replay of the capture of 4 December 2000 (timestamp 20001204213100; SHA-256 a883c7d611f7d6f5d3b64d6901e2086d4b33b3df9621927da6d70789a7302316 of the response body as served). That retrieval, by a model of another family, is the cross-family read of this passage; the session applying the decision could not reach the archive and took the passage from the report. The cross-family re-check of 2026-11-02 (review/earliest-located-recheck-2026-11-02.md, role 119) proposed this text for this proposition and role. Admitted by the maintainer’s decision of 2026-11-02. 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.
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Date. Version 1.2.1, from the page’s “Updated: 08/31/2000”. The page also shows “Created: 11/18/1996”, which does not date these revised passages.
Record ID ht-w05-yudkowsky-2000-staring-into-the-singularity