4 ms·

All exponential growth comes to an end eventually. In the real world there are no "hockey-stick" curves, only S-shaped curves because the real world doesn't de

by mixmax 18y ago

All exponential growth comes to an end eventually. In the real world there are no "hockey-stick" curves, only S-shaped curves because the real world doesn't deal with infinity. I wrote a better explanation here: http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2008/11/why-singularity-may-never-arrive.html http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2008/11/why-singularity-may-neve...

dinkumthinkum 18y ago
This is a pretty good explanation.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
troystribling 18y ago
Kurzweil suggested in the "Singularity is Near" that the believed speed limit imposed by the speed of light would be a barrier limiting the available resources to those in the solar system. Thus, limiting the exponential growth of technology and leading to the flattening of the growth curve suggested in your article. He also, gave a date of mid next century when this would occur.
- dandrews 18y ago
  I didn't like Kurzweil's expansionist idea so much. Instead I imagine that the Singularity will hole-up, and become disinterested in the outside universe. There might be lots of real estate - read computing resource - there under all those turtles.
weavejester 18y ago
"All exponential growth comes to an end eventually." Perhaps. But it may be that this limit is very far in the future. Technological progress relies on matter to store information and to built tools, and energy to apply those tools to accumulate information. There is a lot of matter and energy in the Universe, so much so that even were we to continue at our current rate of progress, we wouldn't hit these known physical limits for a considerable span of time. There may, of course, be more subtle limits we are currently unaware of, but I'm inclined to believe that technological progress will continue at an accelerating rate for a very long span of time.
MaysonL 18y ago
A hockey-stick curve can be approximated to any desired degree of accuracy by a sum of many sigmoid curves. The question is, when, if ever, will we run out of new S-shaped curves?

by mixmax 18y ago

dinkumthinkum 18y ago

This is a pretty good explanation.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

troystribling 18y ago

Kurzweil suggested in the "Singularity is Near" that the believed speed limit imposed by the speed of light would be a barrier limiting the available resources to those in the solar system. Thus, limiting the exponential growth of technology and leading to the flattening of the growth curve suggested in your article. He also, gave a date of mid next century when this would occur.

dandrews 18y ago
I didn't like Kurzweil's expansionist idea so much. Instead I imagine that the Singularity will hole-up, and become disinterested in the outside universe. There might be lots of real estate - read computing resource - there under all those turtles.

weavejester 18y ago

"All exponential growth comes to an end eventually." Perhaps. But it may be that this limit is very far in the future. Technological progress relies on matter to store information and to built tools, and energy to apply those tools to accumulate information. There is a lot of matter and energy in the Universe, so much so that even were we to continue at our current rate of progress, we wouldn't hit these known physical limits for a considerable span of time. There may, of course, be more subtle limits we are currently unaware of, but I'm inclined to believe that technological progress will continue at an accelerating rate for a very long span of time.

MaysonL 18y ago

A hockey-stick curve can be approximated to any desired degree of accuracy by a sum of many sigmoid curves. The question is, when, if ever, will we run out of new S-shaped curves?