Publication of this reply was delayed. It was a lengthy process obtaining copyright permission from David Willetts. My request for permission to publish appears to have been initially overlooked, but finally permission was granted thus I sincerely thank David and his department for the kind permission they granted regarding publication of the following letter.
David's response is far from ideal; it is basically a blunt dismissal, but during the early stages of our Singularity-awareness campaign this response was predictable. Articles in The Economist, which David insists refute the notion of the Singularity, were not actually cited by the Ministerial Correspondence Unit therefore in the absence of evidence we must assume Singularity-critical articles in The Economist do not exist. I actually provided a couple of examples regarding how The Economist has a Singularity-supportive outlook.
It is true IEEE generally has an anti-Singularity theme, generally dismissive, but the so-called IEEE proofs are easily refuted by actual evidence of scientific advancement. IEEE basically descends into childish name-calling, denigration, via slanderously labelling the Singularity with religious terminology: the "rapture". The smear of labelling science with a religious term is a poor type of debate. Given the poor writing style exhibited via IEEE, it isn't surprising to discover the logic published via IEEE can subsequently be proved, via actual scientific breakthroughs, to be substandard logic.
Subsequent to the IEEE article "Rupturing The Nanotech Rapture", which states: "It's not that the singularity vision is completely unrecognizable in today's work. It's just that the gulf between the two is a bit like the gap between traveling by horse and buggy and by interplanetary transport.", we can see how very wrong such statements are when we consider how nano and mirco-spiders have been created; living metallic cells have been created; 3D-printing is progressing rapidly, and smart DNA capable of learning has been created.
For posterity regarding the following letter, and other similar letters from politicians, it is important to record these letters here on this blog to demonstrate how people were unaware of where technology was leading us to. Hopefully we can help enlighten politicians sooner instead of later regarding the shape of the future we are rapidly moving towards. Read about the letter writing campaign here.
