Is there something like Moore’s Law that describes the rate at which human knowledge is growing? What’s that rate?
How long does it take for human knowledge to double? Seem’s like it’s been doubling in shorter & shorter amounts of time. So pretty soon it’s going to be doubling in an amazingly short amount of time?
Or does this only apply to specific disciplines & technologies?
Either way, at some point it’s got to slow down & level out, doesn’t it?
I’m not talking about millions, billions, or trillions of years in the future. I’m thinking more about the next two or three thousand years. The rate certain things are developing, I really can’t imagine much about humans beyond that.
Well there is a big difference between Moores Law and human brains. Moore said that the number of transistors on a chip would double every 18 months or so which would double the speed and processing power of the chips. So far Moore is right.
Human brains do not work that way. Humans do not double the number of neurons every 18 months and, at this time, we have no way of increasing the number of neurons in the brain. Human knowledge is growing due to computers but, at the same time, the knowledge is becoming more fragmented. For a human to be really good in one area that person must devote their life to studying that one area. 200 years ago it was possible for a really bright person to be capable in many areas. Today the brightest people have to spend years studying one area to be competent. The more we learn the more people have to focus on one area.
In other words Moores Law and human knowledge are apples and oranges. You cannot compare them.
Er… I think you misinterpreted the question. It’s not asking about the knowledge that any one human possesses, but about all combined human knowledge. And that certainly does have the capability of increasing beyond the bounds of a single human brain.
Yup, I’m asking about human knowledge overall, and not just individual knowledge. But since cainxinth cited a Kurzweil page, it’s inevitable the two are going to end up together.
I was kinda hoping to steer clear of Kurzweil, at least at first. He’s got some cool ideas, if awfully optimistic. Certainly controversial. According to him, if I can hang on another ten or 20 years, I just might live forever.
See, statements like that make me twitchy. But it is valid to bring up. My question is, how fast is human knowledge growing? At the rate quoted above, we’ll be making 200 years of progress every year! I just can’t buy that. How much have we learned in the last ten years at our current rate? 200 years of that progress every year? Of course, that’s “intuitive linear” thinking. It’ll start slower, then build. Still, that means later in this century, we’re going to be progressing faster than 200 years worth, per year.
Any other thoughts on this? Are we really at some sort of knowledge & technological “singularity?”
Okay, lets just ASSUME that it will be a steady linear progression to reach 20,000 years/100 years. That means, by 2100, we will be going at 400 years/year or about a year a day. Lets look at some of the social ramifications of this. DVD players would have taken about a fortnight to reach every home. Mobile phones would take a month for everybody to have one. The segway will appear in the morning and become a dismal flop by mid-afternoon.
Napster would ahve appeared on the scene the day before yesterday, would have been all in the news yesterday and disappeared today. The gulf war would have lasted a day, the aftershock of 9/11, about 3 days and the actual event itself would be over before you finsh reading this sentence. It would be two months from the discovery of DNA to the sequencing of the human genome.
Now, I would hate to sound intuitively linear but humans just cannot operate at that pace. Unless he envisions a world where we are all living online or replaced by robots (in which case the question is moot because subjective time is all that matters in terms of progress)human brains just cannot process change that fast.
I’ve read a lot on the singularity, I cited Kurzweil because he’s its most apparent spokesperson. I agree though, optimistic is the right word to describe him. I think the dot com bubble burst is much of the reason he delayed the release of his newest book, “The Singularity Is Near.” That combined with the economic downturn, 9.11, and corporate fraud has led to a serious shift in general public sentiment. I bet he realized if people were criticizing him in 1999 for being too optimistic they certainly weren’t going to listen to him now.
That said, I still think there is something to this whole idea of the singularity. History is a cycle of growth and decline, but progress in the long term has been quite steady. Progress being defined by human knowledge, not necessarily happiness. Kurzweil’s problem though is that he spends too much time looking at the big picture.
On a chart 20,000 years of nearly continuous technological progress speaks highly of a 20,100 year, but you can’t underestimate our ability to kill ourselves with power we aren’t mature enough to wield. WMD for example are clearly an irrational technology for any species with the intention of surviving in the long term, but mankind is neither rational, nor a unified species for that matter.
But, barring serious irresponsibility on our part, I do think that we’ll see some rather remarkable things in the next 25 years. Ubiquitous and invisible computing, nanoscale manufacturing, home 3D printers, strong A.I., immersive VR, and common genetic therapy. These things aren’t the usual “newer, better, faster” advancements, together they will change society in no less a fashion than agriculture or the industrial revolution did. Information is the next big thing, and since all our technology is based on information to begin with the system has started to accelerate somewhat rapidly and has all the earmarks of an exponential curve coming soon, within a 120 year at the most conservative estimation, 20 by Kurzweil, Vernor Vinge, and a few other die-hards.
It’s going to disappoint me if humanity never gets it act together and pulls this thing off. The problem is a political and economic one. How can anybody expect us to think like one planet, when we still have first and third worlds? I’m still rooting for the right thing to happen… which makes me an idealist not a realist to most people. I don’t understand why they think you can’t be both.
I agree with Shalmanese about the limitations of humans to adapt to change sociologically. If you look at space travel from 1950 to 1970, and extrapolate forward based on the increasing rate of achievement at the very end, I should be writing this from Moon Base Alpha. The fact that I’m not says a lot, I think.
Don’t forget, also, to account for economic factors in terms of how quickly and smoothly technology will be adopted. Did anybody really expect, 30 years ago, that many Western households would have a handheld laser, and that they’d use it to amuse their pets? This happened because (1) it works really well, and (2) it’s reasonably cheap. Utility plus affordability.
Great technology that provides minimal advantage for large investment doesn’t get adapted. Look at how long it’s taking for HDTV to penetrate society, for example. Yes, the picture and sound are superior, but it’s not like we have to squint at regular TV.
Think also about how many technologies we use today that have gone unchanged for many years. Say, the light bulb: a clear glass (or related-to-glass material) container, its internal atmosphere changed, and a filament that glows with light and heat due to current being passed through it. The LED has replaced the bulb in certain limited applications (automotive signals, flashlights, etc.), but the normal light bulb is still going strong, because it combines utility with affordability.
It’s quite possible that within a few years scientific achievement and knowledge will outstrip the pace at which said new discoveries are incorporated into society as available technology to a mind-boggling degree.
The difficult thing about measuring the growth of human knowledge is deciding what to use as a benchmark.
A prof I had a few years ago was talking about a study of this issue that used the number of academic journals in publication as the benchmark. The data went back for a few hundred years, and if I remember correctly, the number of journals increased at an increasing rate for most of that time period, but in recent decades that growth has begun to slow.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember any of the details, and I’m too lazy to try searching for a cite, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
This exactly how I feel. We can conjecture all day as to whether we have the ‘cognitive capacity’ (or however you want to phrase it) to adapt to the rapid advance of technology, but like it or not it’s coming. Kurzweil seems to think the new techs will be augmenting our brains to keep us in step. But, he doesn’t give much credence to economic inequality’s role. Technology gets cheaper and better, but millions still starve. The first people to get their genes and brains tuned up are no doubt going to be the wealthy.
