Kurweil's Law of Accelerating Returns

Like communism . Or the money growing on trees.

Or donkey singing antem

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Really? He was? I never heard of that. In other words, I doubt it, unless you can show me otherwise.

Technology is a lot different from how it was. Now technology meshes a lot with itself. You might consider computers to be a single invention. But think about all the things they do. Think about how much they've changed the way we interact each other in the past years. We couldn't do the things we do now with Apple IIe's. So you say, "yes, chip speeds are going really fast" like something inconsequential, but that couldn't be further from truth. Computers are used in everything now and are making us ever more productive. But speed isn't the only thing that's getting better. They're getting cheaper and smarter too. Our programs are getting more and more sophisticated, allowing us to do more.

So while it may seem we're inventing less and less (and I'm not sure how one goes about quantifying such a thing) our technologies are affecting the efficacy of other technologies. So the innovations we're making have greater and greater impact on our living, since they build on top of previously existing technology.

 

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Kurzweil's first book was published in 1990.

This is exactly how technology has worked for thousands of years. Truly new innovations were few and far between then, and still are now. I would argue that recent technological developments haven't fundamentally changed anything; most profoundly, they have made long-distance communication and transportation easier, but fundamentally, human behavior remains as it always has been.

 

You are referring to past historical events, not human behavior in general, and neither of them changed us in any fundamental way.

 

Yes, I know. I'm reading his latest book right now and he mentions it. It's "The Age of Spiritual Machines". What I talking about was that I doubted he predicted nanobots being commonplace in the first decade of the 21st century as Roman asserted. Sorry for the ambiguity.

You don't think computers have fundamentally changed how people communicate with one another? You don't think they've fundamentally changed how we do business? Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by 'fundamentally'. What about E-Commerce? It hardly even existed 10 years ago. And as AI continues to evolve, consumers are going to find themselves talking to virtual salesmen to cut costs. The more capable machines become, the more automation we'll see. What do you consider a "fundamental change"?

That's going to change. Never before have we been in the place we are now with the knowledge we have to change ourselves in terms of genetics. We're going to be altering our genetics very soon; it's inevitable. If we can prevent our children from being predisposed from genetic diseases by editing their DNA, aren't we obligated to do so? But we will no doubt soon be able to change human nature, if we choose to.

 

Yeah, I was just impersonally providing the facts there; I wasn't trying to insinuate anything.

E-commerce is still commerce; it's just commerce done long-distance. Same thing with the rest of IT; computer networks are still just fancy telegraphs at the core. A fundamental change would affect basic human behavior. If a new, pervasive technology caused most people to completely lose their sex drives, for example, that would be a fundamental change. If we lived in a hive mind or totally asocially rather than in a complex social structure, that would be fundamental.

The only change I can think of right now that could possibly be considered fundamental is the Neolithic revolution, when people began settling rather than living nomadically. Without this development, there would be no civilization anywhere. This is what I mean by fundamental: a change so profound that it turns society completely upside down forever.

I don't think that the microchip presents a fundamental change to humanity. It is perhaps the most powerful tool of the twentieth century, yes, but in order to bring about the profound changes predicted by Kurzweil, they will have to be not only possible but necessary. Consider the Cold War. All of mankind was for the first time presented with the opportunity to instantly upend the way we all live by destroying civilization in global thermonuclear war. Perhaps the horrible loss of life involved in such a prospect makes this a bad example, but my point is that it was never going to happen if it never became necessary. Same thing with the Neolithic revolution: tribes settled because hunting and gathering became too difficult as a result of the changing climate. Kurzweil proposes changes on this same scale of profundity, but to my knowledge provides no evident necessity for them. Machines are our tools, and when our tools begin using us, civilization will end, and humanity will be fundamentally changed forever. Unless environmental circumstances necessitate this -- and I cannot think of any scenario in which such an arrangement would be perceived by most as necessary for survival -- it will not happen.

Genetic engineering in general is not new, but _human_ genetic engineering, especially as radical as the "designer babies" concept, is an almost totally new idea. However, even that won't be enough to change human nature. People will still be people simply because they will never want to have babies that aren't also people.

As all this pertains to the law of accelerating returns in general, we'll eventually reach a point at which environmental factors will hinder innovation (population growth stifles innovation by causing poverty) or, alternatively, the lack of a need for infinite innovation will cause the resources that would go into constant research to be allocated elsewhere, such as the bank accounts of those who would be funding it.

 

Hmm. Alright then. By those sentiments, it's clear we haven't fundamentally changed, which isn't to say it won't happen, although whether or not we're already part of a hive mind may already be a slippery slope. We have individual brains, yes, but it's ever apparent that we affect each others' thoughts very deeply and embarrassingly transparently.

You say that the change from being nomads to becoming agrarian marks a fundamental change in the human scheme of things, which I sort of agree with. Indeed that shift has caused us to reflect the changes in our behaviors and processes in our genetics. That shift has caused us to specialize, become more efficient, and for our brains to grow and us to become more intelligent. It made our socitietal units more complex. Despite that, we remain human. How much different is a nomad from a human from this decade? Hardly different at all. After all, through all this time, our DNA has barely changed at all. It just happens that there is more than one way for societies to exist.

In the coming decades, there's going to be a shift turning away from materialism and toward the realization that information is the only thing that's real and valuable.We're going to be using gentic engineering to fix and prevent disease, but we won't stop there. We will use it to better ourselves too. We'll use it to make ourselves smarter and stronger. And why not? It will be done illigitmately, whether or not we like it -- it will initially be unpopular, but with due time, it will become accepted, mainstream and commonsense. Why not make yourself better?

For me, it's hard to not conclude that this will result in fundamental change. We're going to be screwing something so fundamental as our genetics. Before that happens, we'll have other methods (pharmaceutical drugs, surgeries, etc.) to make us much stronger and more intelligent, which will facilitate technological change. At that point it'll be extremely hard to predict what's going to happen to society except that it's going to be inexorably different. I think that's the idea behind the Singularity.

I mean, like you said, human nature (our genetics, or our nature) has been pretty much the one constant through all recorded history. But very soon we're going to be screwing with it. And it's going to be very difficult to predict what will become of us. It's a very nervewracking and unpredictable time we're headed for.

 

An individual is capable of spontaneously taking such initiative, but entire societies as a general rule do not. Moreover, I guarantee that "self-betterment" will not be viewed as desirable to the vast majority of humanity if it requires the overturning of civilization.

No, but Kurzweil predicts this anyway. (Instant speciation is a really, really, really ridiculous idea...)

 

It was Eric Drexler that made the predictions in 80's. Engines of Creation
Edit: I cannot remember how long into the future he was predicting it though.

 

Indeed it is, to our eyes;
but the genetics genie is out of the bag now. It is impossible to stuff it back in.
New human species will almost certainly be developed; rarely at first, but more and more as time goes by. Perhaps not in the lifetime of anyone alive now, but it will happen.

This is where I disagree with a lot of tranhumanists- it is not going to happen overnight; there won't be a Singularity as far as I can foresee. And humanity won't change much - at first. But the biggest change might be one that would be quite popular; not increased intelligence- but longevity. If humanity can be geneered to live longer, many things will change- long term planning will become much more important for a start.

 

It will happen gradually, with or without artificial influence, as a long series of relatively minute environmental adaptations.

I agree.

 

I simply never said that humanity has to speciate in order for there to be a fundamental change in the way humans live. I did say that a fundamental change today would completely undermine civilization, and I did express this as the very reason why such a change would not be welcomed by society, and only accepted if it was absolutely necessary, as in the Neolithic revolution.

 

It's not as if I've formally studied any of this, but here goes.

A fundamental change, as I speak of it, is essentially a society-wide change in basic aspects of life, such as diet, habitat, or reproduction -- aspects of life that are common not only to humans but to all animals. Humans once migrated with game, living wherever it was easy to hunt them; after the Neolithic revolution, we began opting for more fertile land that could support domesticated crops and livestock, and was relatively hospitable to human life year-round.

As a rule, humans do not want to move to less hospitable climates or begin chasing game again, they do not want to stop eating plants or animals, and they certainly don't want to stop sexually reproducing. A fundamental change happens only if there is sufficient incentive, and the only sufficient incentive is survival.

So, while the latest advances in genetics could allow us to design our children and even rid ourselves of the need for sexual reproduction and the pain of childbirth, I don't think that most people will unless they have to in order to live. It's too deeply ingrained in society. Just look at the hostility with which so many people regard abortion and even birth control today. People are naturally protective of their own genes.

 

You have missed my point. You are describing a change in _how_ we eat, not _what_ we eat. We have always generally considered the same materials to be edible.

Not only is this a specific case (I explicitly said "society-wide"), you are again referring to the details of how we use the land around us. A fundamental change in habitat is both behavioral and geographical in nature, and yes, it involves an entire civilization.

Once again, you are discussing a specific case of the details of reproduction. What I mean is more akin to a disease genetically sterilizing the population and forcing all humans for every subsequent generation to perpetuate the species through cloning.

It's a nice medical innovation, but let me ask you: Could you recognize society just prior to the invention of soap? Penicillin? The Polio vaccine?

But what are you adapting to? The change must have some impetus.