Consider the law of energy conservation. I'd regard performance the same way, that is, we get closer and closer to the optimum runtime for a given problem, but

Consider the law of energy conservation. I'd regard performance the same way, that is, we get closer and closer to the optimum runtime for a given problem, but can never exceed it. For example you cannot solve a NP-complete problem in polynomial time or better. Standard C++ guarantees a lot in comparison to higher-level languages. So, C++ is constrained more than i.e. Haskell. When strong AI is achieved, I'd suppose you'd be able to achieve the optimum runtime for any given problem.