—MARK MILLER (COMPUTER SCIENTIST) TO ERIC DREXLER, AROUND 1986. In the almost half century that I’ve immersed myself in computer and related technologies, I’ve sought to understand the meaning and purpose of the continual upheaval that I have witnessed at many levels. The best analogy that I see is with the evolutionary past: Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work—the world acts as its own simulator in the case of natural selection. The measure of order is the measure of how well the information fits the purpose. The MIT computer was about one thousand times more expensive, so the ratio of cost per MIPS is about eight million to one. Exponential growth is deceptive. Verder worden recensies ook geanalyseerd om de betrouwbaarheid te verifiëren. The fifth epoch will enable our human-machine civilization to transcend the human brain’s limitations of a mere hundred trillion extremely slow connections.14. Indeed, almost everyone I meet has a linear view of the future. At this rate, technological progress in the twenty-first century will be equivalent (in the linear view) to two hundred centuries of progress (at the rate of progress in 2000).20,21, The S–Curve of a Technology as Expressed in Its Life Cycle. It offered substantially greater functionality. ), The Age of Spiritual Machines, The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life, and The Age of Intelligent Machines. The following charts combine historical data with the semiconductor-industry road map (International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors [ITRS] from Sematech), which projects through 2018. Many observers have expressed alarm at the emergence of forms of nonbiological intelligence superior to human intelligence (an issue we will explore further in chapter 9). Amazon配送商品ならThe Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology: Includes Multimode CDsが通常配送無料。更にAmazonならポイント還元本が多数。Kurzweil, Ray, Wilson, George K. … CHARLES: Basically, that’s what evolution is. MOLLY 2004: And what about this Epoch Six? • The length of time it will take the universe to become intelligent to this extent depends on whether or not the speed of light is an immutable limit. A very interesting collection of thoughts on the future of technology. For those like myself whose views differ from Ray’s on the balance of promise and peril, The Singularity Is Near is a clear call for a continuing dialogue to address the greater concerns arising from these accelerating possibilities.”, —Bill Joy, cofounder and former chief scientist, Sun Microsystems. One of CBS News’s Best Fall Books of 2005, Among St Louis Post-Dispatch’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2005, One of Amazon.com’s Best Science Books of 2005, “Anyone can grasp Mr. Kurzweil’s main idea: that mankind’s technological knowledge has been snowballing, with dizzying prospects for the future. The genetic code itself needs to evolve; the rules of evolution need to evolve. MOLLY 2004: Hmm, in that case, it sounds like we’re just about there. GEORGE 2048: Oh, that won’t do, not at all. The third epoch started with the ability of early animals to recognize patterns, which still accounts for the vast majority of the activity in our brains.10 Ultimately, our own species evolved the ability to create abstract mental models of the world we experience and to contemplate the rational implications of these models. Moreover, they do not continue to evolve into anything more complex, nor do they develop new types of features. I regard someone who understands the Singularity and who has reflected on its implications for his or her own life as a “singularitarian.”1. But the value of y exceeds any possible finite limit (approaches infinity) as the divisor x approaches zero. Wolfram effectively sidesteps the issue of degrees of complexity. Epoch One: Physics and Chemistry. Countdown to Singularity: Biological evolution and human technology both show continual acceleration, indicated by the shorter time to the next event (two billion years from the origin of life to cells; fourteen years from the PC to the World Wide Web). Harry and his colleagues need to get the sequence, procedures, and emphasis exactly correct. GEORGE 2048: You’ll have virtual assistants—actually, you’ll need just one. The first reference to the Singularity as an event capable of rupturing the fabric of human history is John von Neumann’s statement quoted above. With the advent of a technology-creating species the exponential pace became too fast for evolution through DNA-guided protein synthesis, and evolution moved on to human-created technology. Exponential trends did exist one thousand years ago, but they were at that very early stage in which they were so flat and so slow that they looked like no trend at all. RAY: Yes, of course … she … would be able to think at least a million times faster. We then replace each random string with a simple instruction to insert a random string. You’ll take care of everything, you won’t even have to keep me informed. An evolutionary algorithm can start with randomly generated potential solutions to a problem, which are encoded in a digital genetic code. I replied, “Fifty years?” We have accomplished this already in mice by blocking the fat insulin receptor gene that controls the storage of fat in the fat cells. Exponential technological advance: if you buy the argument it puts everything else into perspective. As the figure demonstrates, there were actually four different paradigms—electromechanical, relays, vacuum tubes, and discrete transistors—that showed exponential growth in the price-performance of computing long before integrated circuits were even invented. Of all the thinkers at this conference, it was primarily Bill Joy and I who took account of the exponential nature of the future, although Joy and I disagree on the import of these changes, as I will discuss in chapter 8.