David Kellam

This essay is fascinating. It outlines the exponential nature of technological innovation. Moore’s Law and all that stuff. Nothing new there. What it does point out, however, is that the rate of technological innovation is itself exponential.

But I noticed something else surprising. When I plotted the 49 machines on an exponential graph (where a straight line means exponential growth), I didn’t get a straight line. What I got was another exponential curve. In other words, there’s exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Computer speed (per unit cost) doubled every three years between 1910 and 1950, doubled every two years between 1950 and 1966, and is now doubling every year.

The author gives technology as but the most recent paradigm shift in the evolutionary process. Just as Moore’s Law (with respect to transitors) will hit a physical limit, so too will a new paradigm take over. The author notes that Moore’s Law actually represents the fifth paradigm shift in computational evolution - electromechanical, relay, vacuum tube, transistor and integrated circuit. Work on the next paradigm: biological, three-dimensional, nanotech, etc; is well-established.

This is really the crux.

Thus the (double) exponential growth of computing is broader than Moore’s Law, which refers to only one of its paradigms. And this accelerating growth of computing is, in turn, part of the yet broader phenomenon of the accelerating pace of any evolutionary process.

I’ll stop now. If it’s enough to pique your interest, check it out:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1
I haven’t even read half of it yet, but it is definitely interesting!

DRK

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