Exponential Technologies: Cheer Up World—We Are On the Verge of Great Things

dailygalaxy ^ | June 05, 2008

[ckilmer]

[karnage]

“... science may well turn out to be our savior.”

Already got one, thank you.

But otherwise, a nice piece.

[ckilmer]

The odd thing about this conference is that Nanosolar has already beaten coal in terms of cost for electricity production.

[umgud]

and a computer will pass the Turing Test by carrying on a conversation that is indistinguishable from a human’s.

But alas, a liberal will probably program its soul.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I say he's pessimistic. Many of these things and even more amazing ones already exist but are not being fully developed. 6-8 years from now OPEC will be a joke we tell each other as we get into our electric vehicles. Nuclear power is already proven and each city could have a nuclear power plant already running if we had the will. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html

[Mogollon]

But alas, a liberal will probably program its soul.

Not likely....few liberals make good engineers or scientists.

[givemELL]

The climate megalomaniacs are not interested in actual solutions....they thrive on lack of actual solutions. Nanotech, indeed is offering more potential solutions than industry can deal with at the moment...it is difficult to pick which ones are most promising as new advances come out each week...a site such as www.physorg.com is a good source (just one of several) of daily reported advances.

[Mentos]

Kurzweil makes a very persuasive case that we are past the elbow of an exponential increase in technology that started with the origin of life and will explode in about 40 years. Check out The Law of Accelerating Returns for a good read for the intelligent layman.

[Gondring]

Unfortunately, much of Kurzweil's recent track record isn't so good.

There has been slowing in the rate of technological advance recently, not exponential increase. It's not that we're making no progress...it's the rate. While Moore's Law is holding, with more circuits crammed onto a chip, we're not seeing clock speeds and processing power skyrocketing up like they used to.

And America is backsliding in educational levels. But maybe China and India can grab the banner as America recedes...after all, they have more honor students than we have total students.

[DB]

You discount the power of freedom.

Innovation and a straight jacket are not compatible.

[snarks_when_bored]

Exponential Technologies: Cheer Up World—We Are On the Verge of Great Things

For balance:  It's not exponential, it's sigmoidal

[endthematrix]

Are we going to choose to remain human?
Are our mechanical betters going to choose to keep us around?

[endthematrix]

"I say he's pessimistic."

"if we had the will."

Yeah we "could have" IF - but we don't. Who's a pessimist?

[Lancey Howard]

I think it won’t be long before there are humanoid robots that are indistinguishable from humans, and people will be able to custom design their own mate(s). Of course, that was predicted by Rod Serling over 45 years ago.

[2ndDivisionVet]

"Who's a pessimist?"

The futurist described in the article, IMO.

[truemiester]

within 50 years we will BE the borg. cant wait.

[Wonder Warthog]

"For balance: It's not exponential, it's sigmoidal"

Actually, it's multisigmoidal.

[SamAdams76]

If I can only just fit 225,342 songs on my iPod, I’ll be happy.

[Waco]

We now know that all inventions were one “in our future” So may be time travel. Weather it’s 300 yrs from now or 30,000 from now. Maybe this explains some of the things we have been seeing in our skies?

[InterceptPoint]

Kurzweil is a very interesting guy. He actually expects technology to advance fast enough to allow him to live forever. Think I'm kidding? Read his book:

Live Long Enough to Live Forever