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Will the End of Moore's Law Halt AI Progress? (mindmatters.ai)
johnnyb (Slashdot reader #4,816) writes:
Kurzweil's conception of "The Singularity" has been at the forefront of the media conception of artificial intelligence for many years now. But how close is that to reality? Will AI's be able to design ever-more-powerful AIs? Eric Holloway suggests that the power of AI has been fueled by Moore's law more than AI technology itself, and therefore hitting Moore's Wall will bring AI expansion to a fast halt.
Holloway calls that halt "peak AI...the point where a return on the investment in AI improvement is not worthwhile." He argues that humanity will reach that point, "perhaps soon...."
"So, returning to our original question, whether there is a path to Kurzweil's Singularity, we must conclude from our analysis that no such path exists and that unlimited self-improving AI is impossible."
Holloway calls that halt "peak AI...the point where a return on the investment in AI improvement is not worthwhile." He argues that humanity will reach that point, "perhaps soon...."
"So, returning to our original question, whether there is a path to Kurzweil's Singularity, we must conclude from our analysis that no such path exists and that unlimited self-improving AI is impossible."
Eric Holloway:
* seems to have no qualification in physics/nanotechnology to add anything to the discussion if Moores law will end, and when
* Seem to bagger along with intelligent design folks, with him re-telling the old stories they usually tell about information science and the rest of science
* and seems to write no peer reviewed articles any more (after the paper he wrote unrelated and before his PHD research)
* Did a PHD in a program where the students are identified as "good stewards of God-given talents" (https://www.ecs.baylor.edu/ece/index.php?id=865400)
* Did a PHD program which contains in its description "Engineering is also a value-based discipline that benefits from Christian worldview and faith perspectives; students can also select supportive courses from religion, theology or philosophy. Course selection is broadly specified to provide flexibility and to accommodate a wide-range of student interest." (https://www.ecs.baylor.edu/ece/index.php?id=863609)
* Description of the seminar series of his university where it seems that he presented his PHD: (https://www.ecs.baylor.edu/ece/index.php?id=868860): eBEARS seminars are presented by Baylor ECE faculty, ECE graduate students and transnationally recognized scholars and leaders. The topics lie within the broad area of ECE. In concert with Baylor's Pro Futurus strategic plan to be "a place where the Lordship of Jesus Christ is embraced, studied, and celebrated," some eBEARS seminars focus on the topic of faith and learning.
So praise the Lord for his insights!
How many transistors in the human brain?
Of course the answer is zero, because the brain has neurons. But we can have some numbers for comparison. A Graphcore GC2 IPU has 23 billion transistors. In comparison, a brain has:
100 billion neurons.
10 trillion synapses.
300 billion dendrites.
Which of those need to be emulated? A transistor does not do as much as a neuron, and we don't know all the things a neuron does. There is some evidence that the inside of a neuron does some kinds of calculations. So it's much more complicated than just comparing raw numbers. That said, transistors do operate faster than neurons.
Good link for more reading.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."