Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
Kurzweil expresses the implications of exponential growth in what he
calls “The Law of Accelerating Returns”:
An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological
change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive lin-
ear” view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st
century—it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's
rate). The “returns”, such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also
increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate
of exponential growth. [3]
Moore's Law of Computing Power
In April 1965,
Electronics
magazine published an article by Gordon
Moore, a co-founder of the computer chip giant Intel. The article of-
fered predictions that have since become the stuff of legend. Moore's
Law, as the most famous of these predictions became known, is usually
cited as
The number of transistors
3
that can be fitted onto any
given area of silicon approximately doubles every 12
months.
The number of transistors per square inch became one of the widely ac-
cepted ways of measuring computing power. The more transistors on a
piece of silicon, the faster it can compute. With each reduction in the
area of silicon required to accommodate each transistor came a commen-
surate increase in the processing power and efficiency of computers. But
this somewhat simplistic interpretation of Moore's Law doesn't properly
do justice to Moore's thinking at that time. In his brief, amazingly clair-
voyant article, Moore's prime interest lay in reducing the cost of tran-
sistors and in the effects that the ready availability of cheap computing
power would have on how we work and live. After several years the pace
slowed down a little but even after this slowdown the doubling of tran-
sistor density occurred roughly every 18 months. Today's desktop and
laptop personal computers are streets ahead of the most advanced giant
computers of the early space age—a $1,000 PC today is several times
3
A transistor is a small electronic component found in virtually every electronic device. One of
its uses is as an electronic switch, and switching is of the utmost importance in computer operations
which are based on millions or even billions of ultra-fast on-off decisions. The transistor is an
essential component of the integrated circuits (silicon chips) that form the “brain” of a computer.
