Vernor Vinge was a five-time Hugo Award-winning science fiction author, among the first to envision cyberspace and who warned about technology and AI reaching a point beyond human control.
- Died: March 20, 2024 (Who else died on March 20?)
- Details of death: Died in La Jolla, California, with Parkinson’s disease at the age of 79.
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Vernor Vinge’s legacy
Vinge got his start as a science fiction writer in the 1960s by way of such magazines as New Worlds and Analog Science Fiction. His first novel came in 1969, “Grimm’s World,” an expansion of two previously published stories. In 1981, he made his first of many stamps on science fiction and futurism with his novella “True Names,” one of the first stories to fully explore the idea of cyberspace. William Gibson explored similar territory, and coined the term “cyberspace,” a year later with “Burning Chrome,” and even more fully in his 1984 classic, “Neuromancer.”
In 1984 and 1986, Vinge’s novels, “The Peace War” and “Marooned in Realtime,” were each nominated for Hugo Awards. In 1992, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novel with “A Fire Upon the Deep” and its prequel, “A Deepness in the Sky,” won the award in 2000. He earned a third Hugo Award in 2007 for his novel, “Rainbow’s End,” and his short works “Fast Times at Fairmont High” and “The Cookie Monster” won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 2002 and 2004 respectively.
Vinge was among the first to explore and develop the idea of the “technological singularity,” a point at which technology and artificial intelligence (AI) would surpass humanity. “Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended,” he wrote in his 1993 essay, “The Coming Technological Singularity.” Over his career, Vinge published at least eight novels and dozens of short works in at least five collections.
Notable quote
“Before the year 1984, people generally looked at computers the way George Orwell did in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. After 1984, people had these great visions of computers freeing the people from tyrannies, and that is still a real possibility… and it is a possibility that has come true in large parts of the world. But, I would say the jury is still out as to what the ultimate effectiveness of computers and communication automation favors tyranny or favors liberty. I’m putting my bets on liberty, but I would say it’s not an obvious win in either direction.”—from a 2012 interview for Education Futures
Tributes to Vernor Vinge
Full obituary: Popular Science
