From: hal@rain.org
Date: Fri Jan 22 1999 - 19:01:16 MST
>On Wednesday I saw Ray Kurzweil give a short talk
>* He graphed the speed of computing devices from 1900 to present, and
> claimed that computing speed is not only increasing exponentially,
> but that the rate at which computing speed is increasing is
> increasing exponentially (the graph on a log scale curves upwards).
Damien Broderick, <damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>, suggested:
>
> Probably this one:
>
> http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/book98/fig.ch3/p060.html
...which is Hans Moravec's graph.
Note that Moravec comments, "The reduced spread of the data in the
1990s is probably the result of intensified competition: underperforming
machines are more rapidly squeezed out." Indeed, the data points in
the 1990s are clustered at the upper end of what had been a consistently
wide band in previous decades.
But this seems to undercut his thesis of super-exponential growth.
We see a wide band getting pruned so that only its upper edge can
exist due to competitive pressures. This means that there is not an
actual speedup of growth rates, but simply a selection effect, where
only the fastest computers of the 1990s are shown on his chart, while
a wider range of machines was shown in earlier decades. If we imagine
putting back in the full range of 1990s computers which would have been
manufactured had the market been less cut-throat, as in previous decades,
the extrapolations would be very different. The data would be consistent
with a slow growth rate up to 1940, a fast rate from 1940-1960, then a
slightly *slower* but constant growth rate from 1940 through the present.
In any case, these kinds of extrapolations are worthless, in my opinion.
The fact is that we face significant technological challenges in trying
to maintain these rates through the next two decades. Virtually every
technology of the past has gone through periods of exponential growth,
only to reach some limiting factor. I expect the same thing to happen
to electronics, in the pre-nanotech era.
Hal
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