Claim · 1983-01 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

“First Word” (1983-01) states a prediction by Vernor Vinge: “superhuman intelligences are created”; horizon as stated: between 20 and 100 years from now. The record says nothing about whether the event happened.

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

First Word → states a prediction → superhuman intelligences are created

Where it appears

Predictions on record →

Claim and evidence

First Wordstates a prediction ↓superhuman intelligences are created

Machine-checkedStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1983-01 · publication Records dated 1983 →

Scope and limitsRecorded as a labelled paraphrase, as the dataset does for this source; the column's words are in quotation marks. The column is a magazine opinion page; the dataset already holds it (claims on the singularity and on its 20-to-100-year projection, as paraphrases). Vinge's 1993 paper is recorded separately.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

First Word (Omni, January 1983, p. 10)

Omni · 1983-01

Cite the original source

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

Paraphrase

Vinge writes that this future “will happen as soon as superhuman intelligences are created” and, citing “progress in computer and biological sciences”, that this “should be between 20 and 100 years from now”.

Location in source p. 10, middle column, last paragraph

Machine-checked · 2026-11-05

Source details and check notes

Authors: Vernor Vinge
Version: One-page scan hosted by gwern.net, read as an image by the pre-1996 candidate search and a later machine check.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-06
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Vernor Vinge, "First Word", Omni, January 1983, p. 10.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata and labelled paraphrases only: the inspected scan is a third-party copy whose permission to host is not established. Phrases in quotation marks inside a paraphrase identify the source's wording.
Check notes: Read on the page image by the automated research assistant that prepared the record on 2026-11-05; the paraphrase’s quoted words are as read. Copy read: One-page image scan (gwern.net, SHA-256 6d2f9a0a…), read visually by the automated research assistant that prepared the record on 2026-11-05 and by a reviewer from a different model family on 2026-11-05. The two readings agree on every quoted word. They differ on the word before "progress": the preparing model family reads "given our progress", the other reviewer "given the progress"; the record does not quote that word. That reviewer's first transcription (2026-11-03) gave a different sentence, which that reviewer withdrew on 2026-11-05: "Neither “computer hardware and software” nor “I feel this is likely” appears anywhere on the one-page scan." Machine-checked; 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. The document states a prediction: an event, by a date or within a horizon, in the document’s own words. The record is dated by the document, never by the target date. It documents what the text states and when; it says nothing about whether the event happened, and it implies no agreement or influence.

Date. Publication date of the text. Omni, January 1983, p. 10 (issue month from the dataset and the hosting site; the page prints no date).

Record ID pr-b-vinge-1983-twenty-to-hundred-years