mark fowler

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Mark Fowler catalyst4change@bigfoot.com

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Microsoft Solution Package Implementation Internet Application Solutions Corporate Hosting Mobility Solutions Brand Interface solutions

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Technology paradigm shifts and double exponential growth

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Agenda…

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The subjective experience of time Why does time seem to fly when we get older? Days Months Years Gaps between significant milestones during a life Child Adolescent Adult Subjectively, our perception of time is affected by the spacing of milestones

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When we think about the future in the next 50-100 years we tend to think of progress at the current rate But we’ve been around long enough to now paradigm shifts are not occurring at a current rate.

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We tend think of a future period at today’s rate of progress… our memories are dominated by our recent experience. But we are doubling our rate of progress every ten years… So in this century we will experience 20,000 years of progress at today’s rate.

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1010 109 108 107 106 105 104 103 102 101 100 Paradigm Shift Time (Years) Years ago Singularity is technological change so rapid and so profound that is represents a rupture in the fabric of human history

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Telephone (40+ yrs) Cable TV (25 yrs) Fax (20 yrs) Cellular phone (11 yrs) VCR (8 yrs) PC (6 yrs) Internet (3 yrs) Registered genetic pairs (75% in last 2 yrs) 1.2 million 1997 1982 Years to reach 10 million customers (US) Time Damien Broderick

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The ever accelerating progress of technology….gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue. John von Neumann (1903 - 1957)

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Summary

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Agenda…

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Co-Founder, Chief Scientist, Sun Microsystems. Wired Issue 8.04 April 2000 The 21st century, if we are not careful, will be a century of pestilences, much more like the 14th or 16th. I think we have to change our ways to avoid such disasters and avoid democratizing extreme evil. The 20th century was clearly a century of war. It was a very bloody century. We fortunately avoided nuclear disaster. We created the ability for nation states to destroy civilization.

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In the information age, knowledge itself becomes a weapon Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) Knowledge-enabled Massive Destruction (KMDs) So what makes these KMDs more dangerous?

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So what makes these KMDs more dangerous? WMDs: KMDs: Blow up your bomb once Self-replication within the environment Damage far exceeds the single act Built in the lab – without “natural balances” Extreme harm to physical and biological world

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Dr William Calvin Neurobiologist University of Washington The risk of individuals creating sustained or widespread harm with KMD Class of people with "delusional disorder" who can remain employed and pretty functional for decades, undiagnosed….despite their jealous-grandiose-paranoid-somatic delusions. “Is technology a threat to humanity's future” seattletimes.com - 19 March 2002 Ted Kaczynski (aka The Unabomber)

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Agenda…

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It's that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The concept that small changes will have little or no effect on a system until a critical mass is reached. Then a further small change "tips" the system and a large effect is observed.

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The 21st century – an exponential age With an accelerating advance, a goal can be reached with little warning

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With we find in the Network Economy depress tipping points below the levels of industrial times. It is as if the new bugs are more contagious - and more potent. Smaller initial pools can lead to runaway dominance. Tipping points in the Network Economy Source: Kevin Kelly – “New Rules for the New Economy” - Wired - September 1997 low fixed costs, insignificant marginal costs, and rapid distribution

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Moore’s Law In 1965 Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel predicted that the number of transistors per integrated circuit would double every 18 months IMPLICATION: Price performance of computing will continue to improve exponentially

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Dr Hans Moravec Principal Research Scientist The Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburg, USA

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http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/book98/fig.ch3/p060.html Figure from ROBOT, Moravec, Oxford, 1998, Chapter 3: Power and Presence, page 60

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The key issue for the 21st century Sigma curve vs. exponential growth The exponential growth of computing goes back 100 years – 5 paradigm shifts so far Paradigm shifts keep exponential growth going

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The third dimension

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The exponential growth of computing, 1900-2100 By about 2020 $1,000 circuitry = 20 billion calculations per second = human brain

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Could my grandchildren become immortal? By 2020 all body parts replaceable By 2050….

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“The problem in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is acting with yesterday’s logic.”