Practical Transhuman wrote on 2-Aug-2001:

Vinge's modesty is refreshing compared with some Transhumanist intellectuals I could name.

I've met him at two SF conventions, and he was very pleasant in person, relaxed, happy to chat. (Which means nothing in isolation; there are probably techno-economic radicals who are just as low-key in face-to-face conversation.) Buttonholing him after panels, I was able to get tips to illustrate some of the ships and aliens from his fiction. (He has very specific notions; but his doodles are limited.)

For some near-future not-quite-Singularity predictions, here's my synopsis of his "fuzzy edge of the internet" (networked embedded controllers and "localizers") GoH speech from Philcon 2000.

Everyone mentions True Names (networks, cyberspace), _Marooned in Realtime_ (the Singularity), and _A Fire Upon the Deep_ (transhuman intelligences) — but his fiction isn't unalloyed boosterism. In AFUtD's sequel, _A Deepness in the Sky_, it's 8000 years from now and human colony worlds routinely collapse, e.g. when they over-optimize their networked just-in-time industries. (No inventory to buffer pipeline delays.) People refer to "the age of failed dreams" — unachieved hopes for human- and superhuman AIs, natural language processing, nanotech, FTL. (Of course, in Vinge's "Zones of Thought" universe, that's because *those* things are easier to achieve in the Beyond and Transcend.)

One authoritarian culture achieves human-level computing support (a layer atop the dumb machines) by enslaving *humans* with "Focus", a tunable brain infection that turns you into a dedicated, directable idiot savant. Another civ develops near-microscopic MEMS "localizers" and soon falls into authoritarian ubiquitous surveillance.

His personal site is Vrinimi.net (not .com or .org, IIRC), but (a) it's just an amusing one-page ad for Vrinimi Networking in the High Beyond, and (b) it's not currently responding. (None of the three are.) I've compiled a near-complete Vinge fiction bibliography, cross-organized by collection.

Vinge's modesty is refreshing compared with some Transhumanist intellectuals I could name. Too bad True Names seems bit dated by now, though perhaps the wider, non-nerd culture is about ready to assimilate its perspective.

Because enough regular people have integrated the real-life Web into their lives, while responding well to The Matrix, The X-Files, and even to the Harry Potter novels, they shouldn't have any trouble relating to the world of Mr. Slippery.