topics: |  ai | computer | history | future

    A great deal of the universe does not need any explanation. Elephants,
    for instance. Once molecules have learnt to compete and create other
    molecules in their own image, elephants, and things resembling
    elephants, will in due course be found roaming through the countryside.
    -- Peter Atkins

Rapidity of change in computers

[The inventor asks for one grain on the first square of the
chessboard, two on the second, etc. ]

It was fairly uneventful as the emperor and the inventor went through
the first half of the chessboard. After thirty-two squares, the
emperor had given the inventor about 4 billion grains of rice -- about
one large field's worth [10/sq.in]... It was as they headed into the
second half of the chessboard that at least one of them got into
trouble. [The whole board requires twice the earth's area, oceans
included.]

So where do we stand now? There have been about thirty-two doublings
of speed and capacity since the first operating computers were built
in the 1940s. Where we stand right now is that we have finished the
first half of the chessboard. And, indeed, people are starting to take
notice.

Now, as we head into the next century, we are heading into the second
half of the chessboard. And this is where things start to get
interesting.

---
blurb:
Kurzweil's prophetic blueprint for the future takes us through the advances
that inexorably result in computers exceeding the memory capacity and
computational ability of the human brain by the year 2020 (with human-level
capabilities not far behind); in relationships with automated personalities
who will be our teachers, companions, and lovers; and in information fed
straight into our brains along direct neural pathways.