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I was recently thinking about Moore's Law and if it is truly coming to an end. My initial reaction is that it doesn't matter in itself, if the number of transis
by pedalpete 11y ago
I was recently thinking about Moore's Law and if it is truly coming to an end. My initial reaction is that it doesn't matter in itself, if the number of transistors doubles, what might matter is that our compute power is doubling.
This led me to think that maybe Moore's Law is looking at the wrong metric, and is there a more fundamental law regarding increased capacity. Some proof of this is in the drop in prices of cloud computing and increases in network capacity. If chips stopped getting more powerful, in theory, we may not notice as the capability of the entire network continues to increase at the familiar rate.
However, this begs the question, did this increased capacity actually begin with Moore's Law and computer processing in general? Or is there an overarching law of progress which has always existed. To prove this, I'd need to go back and look at the growth of industrialization. I suspect as the capabilities of the factories slowed, our network speed (rail and sea, then road and then air) increased. As the network speed reached a plateau, we began to find places where we could manufacture more cheaply, thereby increasing the output per cost. Does the same growth exist in agriculture? What major industry does not fit?
There is some evidence that a law similar to Moore's law exists not only for technology. What effect does that have in our understanding of why things grow?
[edit: this is was an except from my YC application to the question regarding what have you discovered]
- chrisatumd 11y agoThe idea that exponential growth has been happening long before Moore's law is one of the main themes of Ray Kurzweil's book "The Singularity is Near". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Near https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Near
- tim333 11y agoHere's one of his graphs from 1900 to 1995 starting with census counting technology in 1900. If you allow GPUs as info tech then we are about in line with his most optimistic projection. graph http://globedia.com/imagenes/noticias/2011/10/17/singularidad-tecnologica_1_925128.jpg http://globedia.com/imagenes/noticias/2011/10/17/singularida... 7 TFlops for $1000 http://www.pcworld.com/article/2898093/nvidia-fully-reveals-1000-titan-x-the-most-advanced-gpu-ever.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2898093/nvidia-fully-reveals-...
- mtdewcmu 11y agoI think technological progress is more like a logistic curve, with exponential-like growth at the beginning and then a leveling off. Look at technologies that have already had time to mature. The speed of airplanes grew tremendously while jet engines and wing shapes were undergoing heavy refinement, but then it leveled off and hasn't really budged in decades.
- gozur88 11y agoTechnologies can take leaps and bounds, too, though. If you view the modern computer as an evolution of the abacus the flat part of the curve was the first few thousand years. It's possible quantum computing, say, or neural nets will be leaps of that order. Or maybe not. It's impossible to predict true breakthroughs.
- mtdewcmu 11y ago>> If you view the modern computer as an evolution of the abacus I'm not sure what value that has for predicting the future. You could view the airplane as the evolution of the chariot. Or not. Does it make a difference?
- gozur88 11y agoIt does, because otherwise you think technology never changes quickly. My point was while it's true we're probably reaching the point of diminishing returns for silicon etched circuits, that's not the end of the line. I'd be surprised if we didn't have ubiquitous quantum computers in thirty years or so unless something even better came along.