Originally posted by stereologist
reply to post by spookfish
I know there has been talk about this for years. That does not make it correct. I suppose here that the term exponential is being used as common jargon and not with the intent of being used correctly. These notions of singularity are fanciful at best. Exponential systems quickly decay since the lack of resources quickly dampens the curve.
Sometime in the future tech advance will be so swift that before the product leaves the factory it'll already be the out of date model.
That has been happening for years. Take anti virus software. It is out of date before the CDs are pressed. I've worked on chips that were 4X the capacity of product being made on the production line. Most places that do research have more advanced concepts than what is being produced. If they don't they lose against the competition.edit on 20-1-2011 by stereologist because: (no reason given)
In this case, the exponential growth refers to the doubling of computer processing power and the halving of price over a set time period...
www.kurzweilai.net...This article explains fairly well the concept of exponential growth in the technology sector. Exponential growth isn't something that gets explained away because it's a mathematics concept. It either IS or it isn't. We're very used to thinking about progress linearly because it's easy to wrap your head around it. Exponential growth is much harder to comprehend because the gains get so large so quickly.
Taking 10 steps linearly will take you forward 10 steps. Taking 10 steps exponentially will take you 512 steps forward.
If the world is going to go BANG because of exponential growth in technology, we might not see it coming.
edit on 21-1-2011 by grahag because:
Would have helped if I had included the link to the article. 
It would seem we may be closer to the bigger bang. 
