Re: Singularity or Holocaust?
Philip Witham (p.j.witham@ieee.org)
Thu, 26 Feb 1998 23:38:58 -0800
>On the one hand, nanotechnology renders traditional economic models obsolete
until
>another (transient) resource limit is hit.
Not to argue with your other points, but on this one, I have often heard some
people stating similar beliefs. I can't agree. First, as far as I can
see, no
one has ever paid the earth for yielding up its raw materials. All money goes
to paying for labor and for turning over ownership of materials currently
owned
by someone else. In a nanotech world, labor is spent on software and for the
creation of other information, and this labor is not free. This resource
limit
is the main limit in today's economy (finite brains), and I don't see a change
coming. A nanotech future contains a *lot* of software, and massive
complexity. It will take tremendous work to achieve some of the advancements
we want. This is not completely different than the present economy. In many
areas of technology, an exponential increase in brain power is needed to
make a
linear increase in product complexity.
-PW