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Tangent: I find it interesting that futurists often claim technology is accelerating such that a "Singularity" of technological development may occur. To my eye
by squirrelicus 8y ago
Tangent: I find it interesting that futurists often claim technology is accelerating such that a "Singularity" of technological development may occur. To my eyes, however, the opposite seems true--each technological advancement seems exponentially more expensive, as if we've picked all the low hanging fruit. And now we're building $24bn particle accelerators to test really obscure things that may or may not have any impact on the next breakthrough.
- jandrese 8y agoIt is a time honored tradition for futurists to look at an emerging technology, see that it currently has exponential growth, and then project that out to infinity. So rarely do you hear them say "Dammit, yet another S curve! Why is it always an S curve in the end!?!"
- seppel 8y ago> So rarely do you hear them say "Dammit, yet another S curve! Why is it always an S curve in the end!?!" Kurzweil's books and articles are full of this, see, e.g.: http://www.kurzweilai.net/seeing-the-s-curve-in-everything http://www.kurzweilai.net/seeing-the-s-curve-in-everything http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns
- seppel 8y agoThey are claiming this, because there are some hard evidences that this is the case (and also it makes logical sense): Each technological breakthrough accelerates (quite often) research in all other areas. Think about the invention of speech, writing, printing, computers, internet. And the cross-pollination with metallurgy, chemistry and physics. Just as one example.