Kurweil's Law of Accelerating Returns

Discussion in 'Computer Science & Culture' started by Nanonetics, Apr 30, 2006.

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  1. Nanonetics Registered Senior Member

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    Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns

    http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

    This lengthy essay can take you to the edge of the promising and the frightful. I had to skim rapidly one day, read carefully another day, then go back to recap the highlights on another to get the whole.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2006
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  3. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    It should be plain to know that Economics is usually pure mathematics. Considering most companies that create electronic goods or "evolve" something are out for the eventual sales figures, it can be suggested that within their mathematics such "Exponential systems" are calculated and altered.

    For instance, in 2050 I doubt Microsoft or Sony (or any other console making company) will start releasing 5 consoles a year with different technological advances.
    The reason this won't happen is because each of those releases would have taken time to research, manufacture and sell. They would never make a decent enough return on all their investments.

    This is where you would have to factor in Economics in how such an expontential system "Decays".

    If of course you are talking about pure Research, then there is perhaps a way to break even the exponential curve. However I'm not going to explain it here, I've still got to get to the point of actually proving it's feasibility.
     
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  5. extrasense Registered Senior Member

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    Very intersting link.

    Nevertheless, I think that the idea of physically combining human and computer brain is not as attractive as it seems to be.

    Imagination would be a bottleneck, as one can not speed up human imagination, while computer is expected to be able of higher bandwidth.

    The same goes to physical movements, and the speed of knowledge acquisition through vision and training.

    As soon as universal abilities of nonbiological entities will become superior to human ones, there will be no point of combining them with the inferior ones.

    Apart of the area of direct human-machine communication..

    ES
     
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  7. Nanonetics Registered Senior Member

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    The author seems to suggest that little nanite robots would continually expand the architecture of the artificial brain as it learns, in mimicry of how the organic brain adjusts its structure. So this would get us massively parallel + high bandwidth = super intelligence.

    I agree with this. A lot of our brain activity and learning comes from input from our sensory organs. Taking the physical body out of the equation seems a little retarding.

    Ultimately, for many years now, I have thought this is where we will go. Rather than a personal computer, cellular phone, laptop or PDA, consumers will have a direct interface in their brains with digital information and a wireless transceiver connection with a larger network. It will be like virtual telepathy where you can dial up other end users by using thought and think rather than speak to them. Along with thought data, we could share audio, video and other virtual sensory data, including what you personally sense in real time, like an intentional hallucination, that overlays or interfaces with our real world sensory data, all by simple thought activation.
     
  8. fadingCaptain are you a robot? Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting thoughts about the direct digital interface in our brains. That would be cool.

    Kurzweil makes a pretty convincing argument for exponential technological growth. It is hard to make predictions from this however. I think he is generally right about growth overall but it is hard to say where this growth will emerge. Maybe it will be something completely unrelated to computers and digital information?

    There are also real dangers that we will perform mass suicide and set ourselves back millenia by killing each other and/or the environment. If we can avoid such doomsday scenarios, I think we will invariably experience exponential tech growth in the long run. Thats what a reading of history shows at least.
     
  9. Nanonetics Registered Senior Member

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    Personally I get torn between the progressivist and traditionalist view of history. The essay strongly suggests that we will come into an inescapable era of progressivism. History seems to suggest cycles of rise and decline, otherwise we would be living under a single global Babylonian empire which would be a continual progressively expanding 4000-year reign.
     
  10. extrasense Registered Senior Member

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    The nanobots are utopia, will never happen.

    As to the networked brain, it will not be faster than addition of participants - as far as they lose their individuality.

    Machines will rule us, like God would do.

    ES
     
  11. Communist Hamster Cricetulus griseus leninus Valued Senior Member

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    What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war which has decimated a million worlds. The Core and the Arm have all but exhausted the resources of a galaxy in their struggle for domination. Both sides now crippled beyond repair, the remnants of their armies continue to battle on ravaged planets, their hatred fueled by over four thousand years of total war. This is a fight to the death. For each side, the only acceptable outcome is the complete elimination of the other.

    I felt that was an appropriate quote, and as to my own opinions of the singularity, I think that it will happen, possibly within this century, but it will turn out to be another "millenium bug", and not a really super-huge thing after all.
     
  12. extrasense Registered Senior Member

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    Makes sense to me: being smarter than a human is not that big deal.

    E

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    S
     
  13. makeshift Registered Senior Member

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    Kurzweil is very optimistic about the future -- though in his new book, "The Singularity is Near" he emphasizes the need to anticipate and build a defensive immune system for the new innovations that we're going to be deailng with, such as self-replicating nanobots. For instance, to control and mitigate a doomsday scenario entailing uninhibited self-replicating nanobots reproducing themselves throughout the biomass, we would need special immune system nanobots, akin to our own white blood cells to keep them from getting out of hand.

    In other words, in his opinion, the future is going to be grand, if we're careful and prudent enough to make good responsible use of our new potentials.

    I'd recommend anyone to read his new book I mentioned. It's pretty fat, hard to read at times, especially when he's talking about our current endeavors in reverse engineering the brain, but a worthwhile read. The guy is definitely a hypergenius.
     
  14. Roman Banned Banned

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    Kurzweil's an arrogant hack.

    He was writing this stuff in the 80's, claiming it was only two decades away. Two decades later, cell phones have become smaller. Go go nanobots? Yeah, right.

    There's evidence that suggests the current rate of inventions is in decline, and if this trend continues, the rate will be about that of 15th century Europe. Sure, chip speeds are going really fast, but that's just refinement of an existing invention. In the past 50 years, inventions have not been actual, societal changing inventions, but refinements of a past inventions. Edison already invented the record. CDs are simply really good records.
     
  15. Jaster Mereel Hostis Humani Generis Registered Senior Member

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    Haha... what a surprise. I think this thread should be abandoned after that post.
     
  16. Nanonetics Registered Senior Member

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    Because of this thread? http://www.sciforums.com/archive/index.php/t-40654

    Perhaps some people wish to take revenge on the seemingly antihumanist direction of modern science. With nanoscale manufacture and robotic labor, why would we need an impoverished underclass of perpetual victims and the accompanying expensive waste of the resulting political drama? A future society may lose any use for uneducatable menial laborers in human form. We can't have our venerable religious institutions abandoned now can we?
     
  17. extrasense Registered Senior Member

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    Utopia.
    Will never happen.

    ES
     
  18. Nanonetics Registered Senior Member

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    Like the budding automotive industry in 1906, nanoscale manufacture has already taken many of its first steps. Indeed, not everyone has their own automobile today.

    Maybe these corporations exist as elaborate conspiracy fronts for crafty salesmen posing as scientists.

    http://www.laboratorytalk.com/news/eks/eks100.html

    The new corrective lenses I wear have a nanoscale manufactured coating.

    http://www.nanoscale.com/markets.asp

    More companies are listed.

    http://www.nanoindustries.com/links/companies.html

    Do investors with any substantive amount of capitol have a track record of erroneous investment?

    It is difficult to understand why governments and industry would not desire nanoscale manufacture and wisely invest accordingly. Kurzweil suggests that twenty years from now, we will have programmable nanobots that are capable of mass assembly of fairly perfect structures into larger everyday objects for all people to enjoy. I can't fathom why such a goal is bad, undoable or undesirable aside from two factors - loss of direct human craftsmanship as an established trade, increased consumerism leading to more disposable wastes, although nanoscale disassembly would also constitute a viable industry goal.
     
  19. extrasense Registered Senior Member

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    Nonsense.
    Will not happen, unless money will grow on trees.

    E

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  20. Communist Hamster Cricetulus griseus leninus Valued Senior Member

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    I must say, I like the idea of dendrix assemblers. It would make everyday life, to say nothing of construction and production, so much easier
     
  21. Nanonetics Registered Senior Member

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    The manual assembly laborer and machinist of today may become the molecular structure architect of tomorrow. They will have little use for yesterday's plastic and metal tools. They will interface directly with an information network using an implanted alphawave transceiver and use thought to manipulate an army of nanites around tiny component structures, virtually observing and commanding the activity in real time, eventually witnessing the growth of a new product on the workbench when it exceeds microscopic scale.
     
  22. extrasense Registered Senior Member

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    Utopia.
    Will never happen.
    Get real.

    e

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    s
     
  23. Communist Hamster Cricetulus griseus leninus Valued Senior Member

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    I'm sorry extrasense, but you can't tell anyone to get real when you believe in aliens waging war near jupiter and making craterchains. Nanomachines are possible, just not anything like Nanonetics imagines it anytime soon. Given time, it could happen.
     
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