In 2004, human beings produced more transistors than grains of rice.This observation comes from a talk by Ed Lazowska at the most recent ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, as reported by Scott Aronson.
How many transistors? About 10 quintillion:
- 10,000 quadrillion
- 10,000,000 trillion
- 10,000,000,000 billion
- 10,000,000,000,000 million
- 10,000,000,000,000,000 thousand
- 10,000,000,000,000,000,000
The title of this post refers to the coming technological singularity. Technological - and cultural - growth is exponential, not linear. Because of this, our history is not a good predictor of the future. This has been described as "the Rapture for nerds."
I qualify as a singularitarian, since I believe the singularity will occur, for better or worse, whether I think it will be a Good Thing or not. I believe it's a matter of when, not if, it will occur. It may occur in my lifetime. I'm not sure if I want to be around for it.
1 comment:
Your viewpoint is very similar to mine.
This is my most recent comment.
http://socialdiscussion.com/environment/5178-maybe-we-cant-stop-climate-change-global-warming-etc.html
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