« Implications of Exponential Technology Growth | The Singularity »
February 05, 2006
Acceleration Is the Key
The key idea is the acceleration of technological development. Nathan Myhrvold once said that human beings are incapable of thinking exponentially. Instead, we pick as steep a linear rate we can imagine, and project it forward. (In my MIS class, by the way, I try to teach this phenomenon. When someone says that data communications capacity growth is exponential, I want my students to understand this means more than steep linear growth. See, for example, Using MIS, page 121a.)
Here's an even more dramatic instance of exponential growth:
According to Kurzweil's research, all of the technology invented in the 20th Century could be invented in twenty years at the rate of development current at 2000. But, the rate of technological development did not stand still -- it continued accelerating, so in fact, all of the technology invented in the 20th Century will be doubled by the year 2014. And that will double again by the year 2021.
"To express this another way, we won't experience one hundred years of technological advance in the twenty-first century; we will experience on the order of twenty thousand years of progress (again, measured at today's rate of progress), or about one thousand times greater than what was achieved in the twentieth century." (p. 11)
Posted by DavidK at February 5, 2006 12:20 PM | Permalink