The Law of Accelerating Returns
In our great-grandparents' generation, telephones, supersonic jets and moon landings wer science fiction. Our parents' generation was taken by storm by PCs, satellites and TV sets. Today, we have access to technologies that make refrigerators remind us when we need to pick up milk, cars that can parallel park all by themselves, robots that perform complicated surgeries, and an industry for space tourists in the seed stage. Imagine what our children's future will be like! Under the Law of Accelerating Returns, future technologies will attain super-intelligence at rapid rates by using their own technology to attain higher intelligence, thereby fast-forwarding our journey to the future in pretty much the blink of an eye.
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Attaining Singularity
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Smarter than the human brain The Law of Accelerating Returns is tied to a radical concept called the Singularity, where futuristic technologies can improve upon themselves in ways unimaginable until they become smarter than the human brain. Scientist Ray Kurzweil, who popularized the term, believes that Singularity will forever change the face of human civilization through rapid technological advancement.
"The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light," he writes.
Postulates
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Quantum leap According to Kurzweil, the Law of Accelerating Returns has the following postulates:
The rate of progress of technological evolution increases exponentially over time.
The benefits from technological evolution also increase exponentially over time.
The rate of exponential growth also grows exponentially when returns from technological evolution increase exponentially. That is, our civilization will undergo 10,000 years worth of progress in just 50 years in the 21st century.
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Implications
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Can the Tin Man grow a heart for real? In "The Quantum Brain: The Search for Freedom and the Next Generation of Man," Jeffrey Satinover predicts that scientists will create devices powered by artificial intelligence that mimic human intelligence and actions -- such as an immense, synthetic, self-evolving and sentient supercomputer. But our civilization will be deeply shaken by the implications of such a technology in our lives.
"Our understanding of who we are, where we came from, our standing in the greater scheme of things,
and where we're going, all looks soon to suffer a dramatic change," he cautions.
Choice of Technologies
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Will "evil" technologies destroy the human spirit? To what extent can humans control an exponential growth in technology? Theoretical discussions on the Law of Accelerating Returns are incomplete without debates over which technologies should be allowed to grow, and which technologies should be allowed to die. Should scientists distinguish between "good" and "evil" technologies?
Criticism
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The implications of the Law of Accelerating Returns do not sit well with most theologians, philosophers and artists. A state of exponential growth in technology brings images of an anti-Utopia where the human being becomes secondary to super-machines.
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References
- Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Kevin Dooley Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of 张' Nicolas Chang Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Lauren Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Kevin Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of woodley wonderworks
