32 Replies to ““We are living in exponential times””

  1. Some of those points were out of date.
    Others were not scary atll.
    It’s an optimistic time to be alive.

  2. Yeah, some of the facts are arguable, but the thrust is not. Invest in China and India, with even half the efficiency of the US or Europe, they will be be the motors of the world.
    But I have no fear though, good old human incompetence will prevail. I have faith that the horsemen of the apocalypse are just resting.

  3. does anyone have any idea how accurate any of this information is. sounds alot like a “you people in the west suck” rant ?

  4. “sounds alot like a “you people in the west suck” rant”
    … or a “we better take a drink of reality and get our act together” rant.

  5. I wonder if the same ratios, not the actual numbers, but the comparative ratios, were similar during the rise of the US as an industrial and scientific force. And, earlier, during the rise of Britain as an industrial and scientific force.
    That is, I’m suggesting that the earth does not and never will operate as a homogeneous system but asymmetrically.
    What is interesting now is that this global process is almost but not quite, completely global. It’s asymmetrical and I’d suggest must operate asymmetrically, but different actions take place in different parts of the world. That’s how a ‘complex adaptive network’ functions.
    By the ‘almost but not quite’ I mean that the ME states are refusing to participate; they remain locked into sectarian tribalism and supplying only one thing, an energy source. The world is rapidly trying to develop alternate energy sources but the ME is refusing to adapt. The data that 5,000 new books are published daily; well, the ME doesn’t even translate one tenth of that number per year. And, Africa is also refusing to participate; they remain tribal and unable to supply anything.
    However, the rest of the world is consolidating itself into this complex network. Research and the development of new knowledge is not carried out by one individual but by teams of scholars and most teams are international.
    And, this modern world is very much an ‘informational network’. A fascinating world.
    By the way, with regard to the very valid statement that ‘technical predictions farther out than 15 years are hard to provide’…well, that goes for the cult of Kyotoism too.

  8. “… or a “we better take a drink of reality and get our act together” rant. ”
    Or more accurately a rant that proves the collective left have become self flagelating dupes of of malicious foreign ideologies.
    Maybe time for the idle left chattering classes in the west to put down the lattes and actually do something productive and creative for their culture rather than provive negative deconstructionist angst.

  9. “Or more accurately a rant that proves the collective left have become self flagelating dupes of of malicious foreign ideologies.”
    I’m not sure what the full answer is or should be, but that video shows, if anything, the very opposite.
    India and China pour way more government resources into technology education that the US, and the US, ironically/paradoxically, keeps falling further behind in terms of leadership and social integration with technology.

  10. I like the part about “if you are one in a million”. Yeah, there’s 1,300 of you in China. 1,300 guys who don’t have the freedom to do anything with their talent.
    Which is why the USA continues to rule the world, and why most of China is at the subsistence level.

  11. I don’t disagree with you Phantom. But I think that part of the point of that clip is that, even if “most” in China and India are at subsistence level and even if “very few” in China and India are wealthy and/or super-educated, that’s still going to dwarf the number of wealthy and/or super-educated Americans.

  12. “we better take a drink of reality and get our act together” rant”
    Okay, who’s stopping ted from drinking reality and getting his act together? Huh? Anybody? I thought not.
    It’s okay, Ted, I straightened ’em out. You go ahead and get your act together, and drink up some of your own special reality.

  13. All growth is either exponential or logarithmic. ALL of it. It flips back and forth between the two unexpectedly, but it does flip.
    One example is airliner speed. From 1920 to 1960 it grew exponentially. Since then the speed of airliners has followed a logarithmic growth curve. Eventually a new technology will come along that switches it to exponential growth for a while. That will mature and we will be back to logarithmic growth.
    Computer technology is still exponential. It will flip to logarithmic, sometime.
    The best way to make a fortune is to be able to detect when the change from logarithmic to exponential (or vice versa) is about to occur.

  14. Let me get this right, in 40 years a 1000 dollar computer will exceed the computational ability of the human race; but with humans programming said computer its not likely to do any more than its doing now. Anyone who works in technology knows GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out.
    The innovative value in China is only good if the innovators are given a chance to innovate. The place giving people the best opportunity is in the United States, I guess that means lots more Chinese immigrants?
    A rant at best.

  15. When I told people 10 years ago that there will be dual-core CPUs on the desktops I was laughed at by the computer professionals.
    When I told people 7 years ago that there will be CD-DVD burners available for less than 50 bucks I was told that it was technically impossible.
    Everything is possible, but one thing: the computers, exceeding capability of the human brain. For simple reason, that in order to understand how to build such program, humans need to understand how they think. This will never happen. You can laugh at me now, but that’s how it will be: the attempts will be made, none of them will succeed. There will be various degrees of similarity, none of them will be identical to human thinking.

  16. Charging forward in Exponential times with the latest battery talk . .
    Between AltairNanosafe battery and AutoBlogGreen
    AG: we have developed a new class of electrode materials that are used in lithium ion batteries. And it’s analogous to what was done with the nickel-based batteries 20 or so years ago when metal hydride electrode materials replaced cadmium in nickel cadmium batteries to produce what’s called nickel metal hydride batteries. And we’re doing something similar with our nano structure ceramic materials where we produce a lithium titanate material that’s used to replace graphite that’s conventionally used in conventional lithium ion batteries and as a result we have a new class of batteries that we call nanotitanate to reflect the new electrode material.
    Now, these batteries have almost unbelievable performance in that they can be recharged very rapidly. Depending upon the power supply, we can recharge these batteries in less than a minute.
    In large format that would power, say, a full sized all electric vehicle that carries five adults. Those battery packs can be recharged in less than ten minutes.
    These are not souped-up golf carts. These vehicles can break loose the tires from a standing start, accelerate to speeds in excess of 100 miles an hour, even though that’s higher than the speed limits of American roads.
    The batteries have tremendous life, estimated to be in the range of 12 to 15 years, or about the design life of the vehicle. And importantly, these batteries can operate at minus 50 Centigrade to plus 75 Centigrade, or 165 Fahrenheit. It’s unusual battery technology and the technology’s been validated by third parties.
    AG: We have been talking with Zap and Lotus and yes, Zap has, aspirations to use the Altair technology in their vehicle. And we’re in discussion around the commercial terms of that agreement. Just a comment if I may, Sam. I’m not aware of anyone who has battery technology similar to Altairnano’s NanoSafe battery performance.
    ABG: Right. That’s why I asked the question the way I did. Essentially your company are the only ones that would fit into the description of what Zap has given for what they expect their vehicle to do.
    AG: Well, I’m sure that Steven is, Steven Schneider, the CEO of Zap, he’s been quite interested in the Altairnano technology for some time. we’ve had extensive discussions with Steven and his team and I think he’s quite excited about the Altair nanotechnology and what it can do for the Zap vehicle.
    ABG: Well, it’s definitely very exciting technology, and I’m looking forward to actually seeing it in, in real vehicles in the real world. speaking of which, are you also, working with any other car makers besides Phoenix and potentially Zap, at this point?
    AG: Yes, we are. We have several programs, the one that we’ve talked the most about is our program with Alcoa where we’re working on a joint program to provide hybrid electric battery packs that would be used in medium duty hybrid electric trucks.
    These are parcel delivery trucks and route trucks. We do have some other programs with other automotive OEMs and truck manufacturers, but we’ve not really disclose those yet, but we’ll be saying something about that the second quarter of 2007.
    ================ AutoBlogGreen.com
    =TG

  17. Biology 101 – progress is good for the health of populations. Populations that do not progress against competition do the opposite – they regress and ultimately die out. There’s no such thing as a static population (at least over significant periods). So stopping progress with anti-development policies will by definition be regressive and at some point result in rapid population collapse.
    Which policy type, progressive or regressive, do you think Suzuki and friends support? Here’s a clue: Suzuki has said there’s too many people and that everyone should move into log houses, giving up on techology.
    If the anti-progress quacks get their policies enforced on Canada, we will still be living in exponential times…just that it will refer to the increase in our human mortality rate. Combine that with Canada’s weak birthrate and before long there’ll be no one left to “stand on guard” for. But on the upside there will be a resultant explosion in Canada’s fruit fly population.
    I wonder if the good doctor likes the story of Noah’s Ark for more than religious context…

  18. humbug.
    Who gives a *%&$ how much money the government spends on R&D? How many new widgets did the government invent last year?
    I care how much the private economy spends on R&D and in that regard, the west in general and the US in particuar is in no danger.
    As for a computer having a processing capacity of the human brain, so what? The human brain still has to program the thing thus building in the same limitations to the technology as we have. Unless the human brain can figure out how to quantify individual thought then how to program that into code a computer can read, a computer will still just be used for smut and spreadsheets.

  20. The human brain is the first parallel processing unit that exhibits cognition.
    CPUs will never exhibit cognition beyond what they are programmed to do.
    The first multitasking parallel processing unit is commonly known as : WOMAN.
    Men are decidedly linear, ask any wife.

  21. My dad’s first job was on a sailing vessel with no enfine (just wind-powered) shipping wood to the West Indies and carrying salt back.In his time things changed dramatically. And he had at least 8 jobs before 38. His last Christmas alive, he commented that he had no idea what my kids had received for Christmas. The technology was beyond his ken.
    My daughter did a presentation for non-tech teaching staff at UW on texting, MySpace and blogging last work term. She’s been asked to present it again 6 months later and it will be interesting to see how much is relevant and how much has been replaced by newer technologies.
    My son is currently trying to choose a college program in computers. Since he’s gainfully employed working on them now, I’m actually discouraging him from going since there is nothing he can learn in college that he isn’t learning on the job now. I’m encouraging him to look at specific industrial accreditations instead.
    The point of the presentation was shift happens. What we do with that information is our own choice. I didn’t see it as alarmist or frightening, just interesting food for thought.

  23. Bipolar,
    The song is from the Movie Last of The Mohicans starring Daniel Day Lewis.

  24. I think many are missing the point of the video, which is admittedly sort of buried. So, I will try to distill the important features:
    – Right now the amount of technical knowledge in the world doubles every two years; the knowledge gained by a college student in his first year is outdated by his third year.
    – By 2010, this doubling is expected to occur every 72 hours.
    At this rate of growth, whether exponential or logarithmic, by 2011 the doubling of technical knowledge will occur every. single. day.
    The really interesting stuff happens when a computer achieves the capabilities of a human intelligence. This does not mean “identical to human intelligence”, as Aaron asserts above, just equivalent in capability – as it is those super-intelligent computers that would be programming their successors, not human beings.
    This is precisely what Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil are talking about when they speak of “the Singularity”:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

  25. “May you live in interesting times is a Chinese curse I’ve been pushing at the Libranos for some time now, I think it’s working well all things considered. It would take a lot less time for their complete demise but we don’t have a level playing field. The lying conniving MSM ass-wipes are on side with Liberals and the rest of the Left.
    To the MSM, Dippers, Greenies, Bloc-heads, MAY THEY ALL LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES.

  26. I agree with you Ed, to a certain extent.
    The part I disagree with is the doubling of technical information being synonymous with technical -knowledge-. There’s a tremendous amount of info out there that consists of pretty much arbitrary choices made by designers, like where the Print command is in Mozilla or what the standard pipe diameters are in metric.
    Knowledge, as in new concepts and techniques increases much more slowly than that.
    The part where I agree is that real knowledge is indeed increasing at a faster rate than ever before in history. I measure that increase by what a well informed guy can build in his garage. These days you can build a cruise missile in your garage, as a guy in Australia did a couple years ago. Friend of mine is building a 4 axis robot from scrap parts. The Hack-a-Day blog has hundreds of astounding things built from not much for no money. Imagine what you can do with a lab and some dough to spend, eh?
    The part where I diverge from the video clip is, you can’t do that in China. There’s not the freedom of thought nor the common access to resources and knowledge that allow such basement creativity by average people. There will be eventually I’m sure, probably some time after the last Commie is hung.
    In my completely non-scientific opinion, given that the human brain is a self aware thinking machine, clearly there’s a way to do it. Where there is one way, usually there is more than one way. I think the electronic computer as we know it isn’t one of the ways, but there’s no inherent reason we can’t figure it out. I just think it will be like the flying car or the jet pack, a lot harder to do that we thought and maybe not worth the trouble.
    Before we see artificial intelligence I think we are going to see people live a really long time. Like an average of more than 100 years in developed countries, maybe 200+. In a high tech environment that will create some serious acceleration of the kind Vernor Vinge writes about.
    The nice thing about this is that all this technical acceleration empowers individuals, not groups. The future is in the garage, not the board room. ~:D

  27. What is most interesting is how these factors, and I believe most of them to be true, shine a bright light on Communist Chinese intent spelled out by deeds. The Communist Chinese have about 1000 spies operating in little Canada (Sidewinder report)and are trying to buy up our most valuable resource projects. They corner the world market on rare earth minerals and seem all too interested in Saskatchewan’s new discoveries. They are involved in backroom deals with big Liberal supporters to get ownership in the tar sands. All the time stealing every innovation they can (Patent Union complaint to WTO). They have been growing their army at 9% per year for a decade. They bully and intimidate everyone they can including Taiwan and annex every country they can without causing a stir.
    I wonder what it will take for Ottawa to wake up?
    One thing for sure; their will be a new world power to reckon with and this one will be a true bully. They will aggressively put anyone out of business who is a competitor.
    Best bet and only option is for Canada to join the US.
    Now i’ll sit back and listen to the Howls!

  28. Ok, so I watched this video before reading any comments, and though it does do it’s (I suspect) intended job well, by about half way through it started to all fall apart.
    Just to pick one particularly egregious example: “For students starting a four-year technical or college degree, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.” Bullshit. In their first few years, they learn classics, such as, oh, say, to pick one off the shelf, Archimedes principle, which will never be outdated. (See video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-1677723335009836764 for example).
    The amount of data may double at any rate we have the ability to generate, transmit, and/or store, the amount of information varies less so, and the amount of knowledge even less. And, oh, smart people in India and China! Be very afraid!
    Nonsense. On the one hand, my customers live and work on every continent. Smart people everywhere are good for my business. On the other hand, people in Beijing can’t provide in-person services to people in Edmonton.
    In my opinion, this video is a scam. Your time would be better spent earning an honest dollar for an honest job.

  29. Thanks, Albertaman. By sheerest coincidence “The Last of the Mohicans” has been waiting for me on my DVR for weeks. I’m sure the credits will be specific on artists and songs.

  30. BiPolar Man,
    AlbertaMan beat me to it. Absolutely love the score for that film even though it’s basically a theme & variations on the same theme, throughout the WHOLE film.
    Michael Mann always gets great music for his films!
    Now, this thing about “knowledge being obselete by your third year.” Gets me thinking that maybe good “old-fashioned” people-knowledge doesn’t really age much, does it? Granted I don’t know the latest things about DVD burners or whatnot, but really basic math (for income taxes) and people skills are the things I’ve used since university, that I NEVER learned there!

  32. A couple of comments:
    You can’t compare broadband penetration in Luxembourg to the US.
    It has a population of less than .5 million and they’re all in the city (and they’re all a bunch of rich bankers and execs – trying to not pay taxes).
    A fairer comparison is Luxembourg with any US city of equivalent size – I don’t think you are going to see much difference. Also, the US is very rural – sticking WiFi hot spots on farms and setting up the access points all over the place is not cost effective. That’s why the US is leading the world in developing and rolling out wide area coverage broadband solutions.
    Also, a lot of the research in next gen optical stuff (fibre, optical switches, etc.) is actually done in Ottawa (by Alcatel – and many other companies). Alcatel even got into fibre when it bought Canada Wire.
    It’s business. When business is done in a free environment imagination and innovation rules. This is good for next gen jobs, etc.

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