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The Future of Computing
webglee writes "What will the relationship between computing and science bring us over the next 15 years?
That is the topic addressed by the web focus special of Nature magazine on the Future of Computing in Science. Amazingly, all the articles are free access, including a commentary by Vernor Vinge titled 2020 Computing: The creativity machine."
It is easy to understimate the speed at which technology is changing. Pending brick walls (insurmountable laws of physics), computing in 2020 should be absurdly different from that of today.According to Ray Kurzweil: "An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense "intuitive linear" 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. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. 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."
One trend is the Open Source movement, the other is the closed source / DRM movement.
The way I see it, one of two things could happen: Computing becomes nearly free, due to lower and lower hardware costs and free operating systems, with entertainment at our fingertips, or... an extreme DRM lockdown where only "trusted" devices may connect and Linux becomes contraband.
Remember how all the SciFi shows of the 60's thought that we'd be cruising the solar system (perhaps even the stars!) by the year 2000? The Jupiter II optimistically took off in 1999, and Star Trek contained several references to "Eugenics Wars" and "early space travellers" that were supposed to have happened by now.
What do we actually have? The same space shuttle that's been flying since the late 70's, and updates to the same rockets that have existed throughout the history of the space program.
Technology does progress at an exponential rate. The only problem is that the focus of technology moves. Computers have already gone through several booms of massive technology increase, and are now very stable creations. There's just as good of a chance that they'll continue to update in a more linear fashion (ala automobiles) as there is that they'll experience exponential increases in technological sophistication. I personally find it more likely that technology will begin to focus on improving other areas for the time being, and allow computers to remain stable for the time being.
So be careful not to severely overestimate while you're attempting to avoid underestimation.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Was anyone else as completely underwhelmed by Vinge's article as I was? For a man who has produced so many incredible, original visions in the past, he seems to be stuck in a bit of a rut these days, going on and on about ubiquitous computing. There wasn't a single idea in his article that I haven't heard many times before already, from him and others. It reads like something he cranked out in 10 minutes to meet some last minute deadline...
I read Usenet for the articles.
Compare the state of computing in 1990 with that of today. Yes, computers are immensely faster than they were 15 years ago, but have things changed on a fundamental level? Have computers become more *intelligent*, rather than just faster? I, for one, am disappointed.
An example: handling contact and scheduling information. In 1993, Apple showed how it should be done with the Newton. 13 years on, the most popular application (Outlook) still doesn't have that level of functionality.
Computers were supposed to make things easier for us. Instead, they all too often complicate things needlessly.
Yes, thanks to better hardware, more tasks have become feasible to do on a computer. Video playback, massive networks like the internet are very nice.
But while new functions are being added, existing software stagnates. Mac OS X is nice and robust, but UI improvements over Mac System 7 are tiny to nonexistent. Windows shows a similar lack of progress. Word processing is not fundamentally different from 1984.
Vernor Vinge is a sci-fiction author who was the first to coin up the term singularity, and uses the idea in some of his novels. Linkie: http://mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html
If you would like to read one of his books I would suggest Across Realtime, which touches on this subject lightly. Although his other stories are somewhat less palatable for me (but I've only read three).
Other authors who delve more deeply into singularity issues are Greg Egan (hard going, but definatly worth reading) http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/, Charles Stross's Accelerando http://www.accelerando.org/_static/accelerando.htm l, and .
Science fiction is odd as a genre since the authors minds are affected by the technology they see possible at the time of writing. Science fiction writers in the past depicted a future with minimal use of networked computers for instance. So the theme seems to change over time, whereas other genres remain pretty static.
\(^o^)/
Might I point out that more money is probaly put into the cell phone, telcom, and computers industry than all the world's space programs combined.
The reason we aren't seeing great advancments in our space and nuclear programs is that they are highly centralized and are at the whim of select few if they get funding or not.
However, when technology is decentralized... As in everyone can have a cell phone, broadband, and a computer within their means then those types of technology will advance faster at an accelerating rate. (I hope I don't sound like Kurzweil).
Not everyone can go to the moon... But most everyone in the western world can have an Xbox360. May not mean everyone is going to get one... But more than enough to cause rampant R&D into that industry.
Trust me... I'm shocked myself. I remember a time when we didn't have cell phones, computers with hard drives (I miss my old IBM pc jr), internet, 4-7 channel TVs, and every thing else that is happening now... And I'm only 27.
Things are happening at an accelerating pace... Short of a world disaster or economic depression lik ethe 1930's I doubt we will see a slow down.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Let's take a parallel in the space race of the 60s. Everyone expected the development to continue in the same pace it did during the 60s. I mean, face it, between 60 and 70, the technology changed from being able to lift some rather small mass into orbit (well, at least sometimes, most of the time it just went up in smoke) to bringing a 3 man craft including lander, car and a lot more junk to our moon! People extrapolated. 60 to 70: Zero to moon. 70 to 80: Flight to moon -> Moon base. 80-90: Mars. 90-2000: Past the asteroid belt and prolly even more.
Now, what people didn't take into consideration was that, with the race over, funding stopped. No more money for the NASA, no more leaps in science.
Same could happen to us and computers. Now, it is of course vastly different since there isn't only one customer (like in the space race, the only customer was the feds, and when they don't want your stuff anymore, you're outta biz), but it all depends now if the "consumer base" for the computer market is willing to spend the money. There are SO many issues intertwined that influence the market and thus development, that it's virtually impossible to predict what is going to be in 5 years, but trying to give an even remotely sensible prediction for 15 years is impossible.
Too many factors play into it. Sure, you can extrapolate what COULD be, considering the technology we have now and the speed in which technology CAN evolve. Whether it does will highly depend on where our priorities lie. DRM, will it kill development with less companies daring to get into the market, or will it increase development since DRM technology swallows away huge amounts of cycles? Legislative, patents and copyright, how will the market react? Will we let it happen or will we refuse to play along? Are we descending to being consuming drones or will there be a revolt against the practice of abusive patents?
Too many variables. Too many "what if"s.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm not very concerned with progress in hardware. My 3 year old computer runs pretty much anything just fine, and I expect it to continue doing so for a few years to come, at least. Right now, I'm severely disappointed by the lack of ideas in technology. There's only so far you can take word processing, e-mail, scheduling, etc. Enough with 'innovation' in those areas, already!
What I'd really like to see is improved content creation tools. How about 3D scanners, so Joe Artmajor can easily scan his sculptures into modelling programs? They exist, but they aren't on the consumer market yet. I'd rather see that than another few years of GPU speed wars.
I think a singularity is possible, by the definition of "a point beyond which we cannot hypothesize", because we cannot truly conceive/understand of that point. But will it necessarily be AI, or even computers, that create this? It's about as likely as extraterrestrial contact. Which is, you'll note, also a singularity.
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no hidden comments and I only mod UP
"I predict that within 100 years computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings in Europe will own them."
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
The truth is you don't know which technologies will take or why. Sometimes you think X should be popular but it doesn't catch on for 10 years after you found it. Or something you blow off as insignificant comes out of nowhere to dominate a market.
Although I have noticed one small arena that tends to be a good predictor of the wider market. If p0rn distributors pick it up, then you can almost bet it's going to be the next insanely great thing. I remember taking a training class for a streaming video server in Atlanta a few years ago. Half my classmates were from p0rn distributors. Which definitely made break time more interesting.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Consider that our basic approach to computer programming has not changed in over a century and a half. It all started when Lady Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm (or table of instructions) for Babbage's gear-driven analytical engine. Software construction has been based on the algorithm ever since. As a result, we are now struggling with hundreds of operating systems and programming languages and the ensuing unreliability and unmanageable complexity. It's a veritable tower of Babel. Computing will not reach its true potential unless and until we abandon the algorithmic model and embrace a non-algorithmic, signal-based, synchronous software model. Only then will we be able to guarantee that our software systems are free of defects. There will be no limit to their complexity.
Of course word processing hasn't changed since 1984. LaTeX and GNU Emacs were written in 1984... how could you improve on that?
I quit!
Although I like the idea of exploring space and all the neat things that we could do up there, I'm gald we've said forget it. I'd rather have cheap entertainment and cell phones than have "a man" walk on the moon.
To my mind this is very short-sighted. Perhaps it's appropriate that we have fallen back to regroup, but not going into space in a large scale is suicidal -- not on an individual basis, but for the species. The only question is the appropriate time frame. Perhaps it's appropriate that we stop and do a bit more development before another big push. This is very different from "stop and sit on our hands", however.
Toys are fun, but they're only really important if they're a step towards getting where you need to go. I enjoy computer games, but I don't really consider them important...except that gamers have helped push the development of computer technology.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Check out http://imagination-engines.com/ which is a US company founded by an AI researcher Dr. Stephen Thaler. In summary his systems are composed of paired neural nets in tandem where the first is degraded/excited to produce 'novel ideas' (the 'dreamer') and the second is intended as a 'critic' of the first system's output, or a filter for 'useful' ideas.
In real-life applications, it was used to invent a certain oral-B toothbrush product.
At one time the site's literature announced that 'invention number (CM Creativity Machine) produced invention number 2 (STANNO Self-Training Artifical Neural Object)