As some of you may have already noticed, WIRED published a mocking “letter of acceptance” on Singularity University. This extends a long trend of WIRED simultaneously boosting and insulting Singularitarians and Transhumanists, a mighty confusing one.

For instance, the WIRED science blog is written by two people who seem pretty damn transhumanistic. They wrote about saving the “mind uploading” article on Wikipedia, which is so obscure and niche that even I decided not to bother posting about it. In contrast, here’s another anti-Singularity (anti-Kurzweil, specifically) article on WIRED from last year, presumably to counterbalance the article focused on Ray.

Adam Mann says that “the magazine has also long been a backer of the pro-Kurzweil, go Singularity movement”, then says:

I feel like the stance among the general staff may be changing. And this month they ran a humorous dig at Kurzweil’s Singularity University. Has even Wired adopted an anti-Singularity stance?

Probably not. I think it’s just the fact that Kurzweil and the Singularity are on an upswing in the media and his assumptions are being held out in the full light of day. Maybe Kurzweil is reaching the peak of his own public-attention-exponential-growth curve? As more people start to follow his movement, perhaps there will start to be larger skepticism for it as well. I can only hope.

But Mr. Mann, if WIRED were pro-Singularity all along, why would the upswing make any difference? They’ve been exposed to the ideas since day one. The fact of the matter is that WIRED is a lot of different people, some pro-Singularity, some anti. My conception of the Singularity is quite different than Ray’s anyway, so I am not tremendously concerned about skepticism or support — except when it comes to specific points. That is why I responded aggressively to Horgan’s criticism of the “Singularity”, but ignore other criticisms, like PZ Myers’.

I’ve been in this pro/anti-Singularity shtick for what seems like so long (since I was 17), that nowadays the communication here is mostly automatic. What I notice are little personality quirks and traits, for instance that Horgan is badass enough to insult Newsweek (“I didn’t think anyone read that anymore”) while being paid by them. The main thing I am concerned about is that Friendly AI projects are funded. A friendly seed, that’s all I want. Everything else is ultimately cultural.

“For just as every seed holds the power and magic of creation, so too do you, and every other creature in this world.” — Magi Lune, Fern Gully