Ray Kurzweil & the Future of Clean Energy
Just read an interesting article in Newsweek about Ray Kurzweil and here is in essence how he justifies his amazing claims about the future (quoting below):
"Kurzweil makes predictions based on a notion that he calls "the law of accelerating returns," which holds that technology does not advance in a linear fashion but rather at an exponential rate. It's the difference between 1-2-3-4-5 and 1-2-4-8-16. Go out 10 steps and the linear string has reached 10, while the exponential string is hitting 512. With an exponential progression, at first, when the numbers are small, the progress doesn't look like much. But each new breakthrough enables the next breakthrough to occur more quickly, so the rate of change accelerates. Represented on a graph, the line of progress looks like a hockey stick—it's flat for some years, and then there's a sudden rise, which gets misinterpreted as a sudden breakthrough when really it's just the continuation of an exponential progression, Kurzweil says.
He cites as an example the work of the Human Genome Project. In 1990 scientists had managed to transcribe only one ten-thousandth of the genome over an entire year. Yet their goal was to sequence the entire genome in 15 years. After seven years, only 1 percent had been sequenced. But, in fact, the project was on track. The rate of progress was doubling every year, which meant that when researchers finished 1 percent they were only seven steps away from reaching 100 percent. Indeed, the project was completed in 2003. "People thought it would take centuries," Kurzweil says, because they foolishly believed that technology could advance only in a linear fashion.
That same kind of linear thinking fuels the current hysteria about global warming. "People are assuming that nothing will change in the next few decades. They're ignoring the progression in renewable energy," Kurzweil says. After studying the subject, he and Google's Larry Page concluded that the nanotechnologies needed to collect the energy of the sun are advancing at such a pace that in 20 years, solar power will be able to provide 100 percent of the earth's energy needs.
What happens then? Once computers are a billion times more powerful than today—and we're all a bunch of cyborgs with brains like supercomputers and bodies that can't be killed by disease? For one thing, stuff starts progressing really, really fast. Imagine a thousand scientists, each a thousand times smarter than they are today, operating a thousand times faster. First thing these smarty-pants cyborgs will do, Kurzweil reckons, is make themselves even smarter, and then smarter still, until intelligence is sprouting all over the place like some kind of crazy out-of-control IQ kudzu. Eventually you've got scientists who are a million times smarter and a million times faster than they are today. Breakthroughs should be popping up all over. "An hour would result in a century of progress [in today's terms]," Kurzweil claims in The Singularity Is Near. Eventually, we leap beyond the boundaries of our planet, and every bit of matter in the entire universe becomes intelligent. "This," Kurzweil concludes, "is the destiny of the universe."" - From Newsweek.
This guy is a genius!
-Jason
"Kurzweil makes predictions based on a notion that he calls "the law of accelerating returns," which holds that technology does not advance in a linear fashion but rather at an exponential rate. It's the difference between 1-2-3-4-5 and 1-2-4-8-16. Go out 10 steps and the linear string has reached 10, while the exponential string is hitting 512. With an exponential progression, at first, when the numbers are small, the progress doesn't look like much. But each new breakthrough enables the next breakthrough to occur more quickly, so the rate of change accelerates. Represented on a graph, the line of progress looks like a hockey stick—it's flat for some years, and then there's a sudden rise, which gets misinterpreted as a sudden breakthrough when really it's just the continuation of an exponential progression, Kurzweil says.
He cites as an example the work of the Human Genome Project. In 1990 scientists had managed to transcribe only one ten-thousandth of the genome over an entire year. Yet their goal was to sequence the entire genome in 15 years. After seven years, only 1 percent had been sequenced. But, in fact, the project was on track. The rate of progress was doubling every year, which meant that when researchers finished 1 percent they were only seven steps away from reaching 100 percent. Indeed, the project was completed in 2003. "People thought it would take centuries," Kurzweil says, because they foolishly believed that technology could advance only in a linear fashion.
That same kind of linear thinking fuels the current hysteria about global warming. "People are assuming that nothing will change in the next few decades. They're ignoring the progression in renewable energy," Kurzweil says. After studying the subject, he and Google's Larry Page concluded that the nanotechnologies needed to collect the energy of the sun are advancing at such a pace that in 20 years, solar power will be able to provide 100 percent of the earth's energy needs.
What happens then? Once computers are a billion times more powerful than today—and we're all a bunch of cyborgs with brains like supercomputers and bodies that can't be killed by disease? For one thing, stuff starts progressing really, really fast. Imagine a thousand scientists, each a thousand times smarter than they are today, operating a thousand times faster. First thing these smarty-pants cyborgs will do, Kurzweil reckons, is make themselves even smarter, and then smarter still, until intelligence is sprouting all over the place like some kind of crazy out-of-control IQ kudzu. Eventually you've got scientists who are a million times smarter and a million times faster than they are today. Breakthroughs should be popping up all over. "An hour would result in a century of progress [in today's terms]," Kurzweil claims in The Singularity Is Near. Eventually, we leap beyond the boundaries of our planet, and every bit of matter in the entire universe becomes intelligent. "This," Kurzweil concludes, "is the destiny of the universe."" - From Newsweek.
This guy is a genius!
-Jason
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