Claim · 2011-10-12 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Allen and Greaves's article of 2011 argues that Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns is not a physical law but an assertion about how past rates of progress predict future ones.

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

Paul Allen: The Singularity Isn’t Near → contests → Machine intelligence as a physical or cosmic process

Where it appears

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

Claim and evidence

Paul Allen: The Singularity Isn’t Nearcontests ↓Machine intelligence as a physical or cosmic process

Machine-checkedStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 2011-10-12 · publication Records dated 2011 →
Role: Earliest located, Contesting
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Engagement: Engages a premise. Disputes the premise that the rise of machine intelligence follows from a law-like accelerating evolutionary process, as Kurzweil states it.

Scope and limitsThe authors grant that a singularity "might one day occur"; they dispute its timing and the law-like status of the trend. Kurzweil's reply of 2011 answers this passage.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Paul Allen: The Singularity Isn’t Near

MIT Technology Review (technologyreview.com), October 12, 2011 · 2011-10-12

Cite the original source

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

Source excerpt

“Kurzweil's reasoning rests on the Law of Accelerating Returns and its siblings, but these are not physical laws. They are assertions about how past rates of scientific and technical progress can predict the future rate.”

Location in source Paragraph beginning "Kurzweil's reasoning rests on the Law of Accelerating Returns"

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-11-01

Source details and check notes

Authors: Paul G. Allen; Mark Greaves
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31 (SHA-256 0bd588bded81095363cc14f206c1c8e8b6ab37aabc3cb12f38874dc8044baf4b). Current Technology Review page dated October 12, 2011, bylined Paul G. Allen and Mark Greaves.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-31
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Paul G. Allen, Mark Greaves, “Paul Allen: The Singularity Isn’t Near”, 2011-10-12.
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. A cross-family machine check (2026-11-01, item 17) classified the record’s passage blind and reached the same stance. 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 disputes the proposition or a premise it depends on. The record documents the text’s position, not who is right.

Date. Date of publication, as the source gives it.

Record ID ht-w09-allen-greaves-2011-singularity-isnt-near