Claim · 1993-12 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Vinge’s paper “The Coming Technological Singularity” (proceedings of December 1993) argues that confining a superhuman intelligence is intrinsically impractical, since it could give helpful-seeming advice that would set it free.

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

The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era → contests → Advanced AI can be kept under control by design

Where it appears

Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI, 1863–2026 →

Claim and evidence

The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Eracontests ↓Advanced AI can be kept under control by design

Machine-checkedStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1993-12 · publication Records dated 1993 →
Claimed date: 1993-03-30. Presented at the VISION-21 Symposium, 30–31 March 1993. The delivered version was not retrieved, so the proceedings wording is not dated to the presentation.
Role: Contesting, Earliest located
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Engagement: Engages a premise. Disputes the premise that design and containment can keep a superhuman system under human control.

Scope and limitsConcerns physical confinement and rule-based restriction of a superhuman intelligence. Earliest located means the earliest text found by the collection’s searches and the cross-family re-check of 2026-11-02, not a first statement.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era

NASA (VISION-21 proceedings, NASA Conference Publication 10129) · 1993-12

Archived copy, captured 2022-04-15: The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era

Cite the original source

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

Source excerpt

“I argue that confinement is intrinsically impractical.”

Location in source Printed p. 15 (PDF page 5), paragraph discussing Drexler

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-11-02

Source details and check notes

Authors: Vernor Vinge
Version: NASA Technical Reports Server scan of the proceedings pages, pp. 11–22; retrieved 2026-10-06 with the hash both candidate searches recorded, and checked against its text layer. The pre-1996 candidate search compared pp. 14–16 with the page images.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-06
Language: English (en)
Archive copy: Open archived copy, captured 2022-04-15: The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2022-04-15. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-06.
Attribution: Vernor Vinge, "The Coming Technological Singularity", in VISION-21, NASA CP-10129 (1993), pp. 11–22.
Reuse: Public use permitted, according to the NASA Technical Reports Server record.. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Quotation matched on 2026-11-02 against the held source, retrieved on 2026-11-02 from the source’s evidence URL (SHA-256 943ee92903785b1b6c1cf2e85a22dc47cfdb372ef3295c572dee0a742e490acd). Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms; “…” joins fragments that occur in order. Cross-family pass: the re-check of 2026-11-02 (review/earliest-located-recheck-2026-11-02.md, role 75) read 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.

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. Publication of the proceedings, catalogued by NASA’s Technical Reports Server as 1 December 1993; recorded at month precision because the day may be conventional.

Record ID rd-r10b-vinge-1993-coming-technological-singularity