The Singularity

[c1ue]

Re: The Singularity

Well you haven't really proven anything by saying the number of companies doing the research is decreasing. What happened to all the people doing the research for the now-defunct companies? Were they swallowed up by the remaining companies as they gained market share, or what? Seems like the number of actual researchers is only tenuously related to the number of companies performing research.

They went into government/defense, became bankster techno-minions, are unemployed, or are working on social networking.

I am not being sarcastic.

Some are working in solar, because of the overlap in technology.

Agreed. I imagine that the number of people and companies making vacuum tubes dropped precipitously just before the age of the vacuum tube ended.

And all of those unemployed people probably have great incentive to find a way to break down the next technological wall.

I'd suggest reading some history before making a fatuous statement like this.

The vacuum tube computers never went over 100,000 vacuum tubes; ENIAC had 18,000.

The number of people employed making vacuum tubes for ENIAC? A mere handful.

IBM grew an entire industry out of transistor-based mainframes starting with the System 360. In 1955, IBM had 41000 employees - by 1968 it had 241,000.

There has not been a period ever where the electronics industry has shrunk; this is now happening.

Kurzweil is an entertainer with communications technology experience and skills; he uses the output of the electronics industry but has never actually been involved in semiconductor or computer development.

Paul Allen at least was involved in the software interface to the hardware.

At any rate here is Jaron Lanier:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/lanier_pr.html

It is amazing how the technotopians take their direction from entertainers and software dudes.

Those of us who actually work with the hardware rarely, if ever, share these beliefs.

It was state of the art...in 2007. There are so called 7-8 axis machines out now that run circles around it and can put out parts consistently with .0001" accuracy, or better, all day. Those have been out for years as well. For many things they will out put true "one step and done" manufacturing processes where that one step is feeding your raw material into the CNC machine itself.

These machines can't make computer chips.

As I noted earlier in this thread: the entire 1st world plus the rich portions of the rest of the world can support only 230 or so semiconductor fabs at present. The best analogy is the Jetson's rocket car: we can actually build such a thing today. But the entire world could probably only support a few thousand - they would be so expensive to build, maintain, and operate.

The cost of building the next generation of process technology is such that Moore's law is already broken.

In the '80s, '90s, and even early 2000s, a new process was 35% cheaper, 35% faster, and 50% more productive, and a new generation would come out ever 2-3 years.

Today a cutting edge process is 15% more expensive, 15% faster, and 10% more productive with a new generation in 5 to 7 years.

Given this trend - and this ignores major unsolved problems like quantum tunneling* - how exactly will the trend accelerate?

* Quantum tunneling: the phenomenon in which any given particle can just disappear, and reappear somewhere else. It is extremely rare. Modern transistors have as little as 10 electrons constituting a transition; 1 such electron disappearing causes a failure. Now pack 100 million transistors onto a single chip and flip each transistor 2 billion times a second - you can see that a quantum tunneling event is a probability, not a possibility. And since you can't even predict where it will happen, all you can do is try to build in redundancy. In contrast a Year 2000 transistor had hundreds, even thousands of electrons passing with each transition. Chips were 1 million transistors and clocked at one or two million of times a second.

[Chris Coles]

Re: The Singularity

Those of us who actually work with the hardware rarely, if ever, share these beliefs.

+ 1

There are always those that will have complete faith in the ability of a new technology to solve every problem. But when you get right down to the actuality of running the machines night after night; THEN you will discover just how little we know and how much, unexpectedly, can go wrong...... We do not live in a perfect world, and by far the majority have been shielded from any true understanding of where their modern world has come from, nor just how difficult any process becomes without that crucial input from a very skilled and experienced individual.

A VERY good example was watching an IMAX film about the International Space Station in the Smithsonian Aerospace museum in DC where there was not one frame in that film about HOW the space laboratory was manufactured.

Grand vision; not one jot of understanding of how it got there in the first place.

And then we see the same process with the recent revelations of the cost of The James Web Telescope ......... ANYONE with a complete understanding of the manufacturing processes involved will tell you ..... somewhere along the way, many are taking that budget for a ride to their own personal prosperity. I truly doubt the true MANUFACTURING cost is more than a tenth of the claimed costs. .... Grand vision; no real idea of what it takes to achieve it.

[mesyn191]

Re: The Singularity

These machines can't make computer chips.

I know and didn't suggest they could. I think you're misreading my post or something.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: The Singularity

Quote Originally Posted by flintlock
At any rate here is Jaron Lanier:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/lanier_pr.html
It is amazing how the technotopians take their direction from entertainers and software dudes.

Those of us who actually work with the hardware rarely, if ever, share these beliefs.

I posted that not flintlock.

Do I understand that you thing that Jaron Lanier is a technotopian? You might want to read that link. He is one of the more famous anti-technotopian writers.

Not to derail here, but what is it about programmers that makes them unfit to comment on technological progress?

[Ghent12]

Re: The Singularity

from where i'm sweatin (working all wknd on a boatjob that cant possibly be finished in the allotted time), 'the future' is a looooooong ways off - esp the view of "when Most service tasks can be handled by automated voice systems" ?

that concept could only come from someone who is in the info-tech or financial 'services', since the vast majority of the 'services-sector' of the economy that i'm familiar with wont be _replaced_ by anything with silicon in it any time soon....

that is.. unless somebody has robots that can swing a hammer (build houses), turn a wrench (_fix_ cars, not just build em), or can do anything that i do on a typical boat 'service' job

and lets just ponder for a second the idea of "automated voice systems" handling the pumpout of your septic tank...

right...

so much for the 'technotopian' POV and the 'jetsons lifestyle' for any place other than the mind of the dreamers in silicon valley... most the rest of us will still need to actually _sweat_ for a living

Well, as I said, a Jetsons economy is about as certain as flying cars and jetpacks for everyone. The cool thing about the future, though, is that it will contain jetpacks for some people; just not in the way people from the 1920's and 1930's envisioned. See the Jetlev, which is in the neighborhood of $100,000. It may not be practical transport, but it could certainly add some more excitement to water sporting activities.

Rhetorically speaking, the future will almost always be brighter than the past due to technological increases reducing the labor effort necessary to live or live comfortably.

The whole singularity thing is nonsense any time soon much less decades from now but we're likely to see lots more jobs taken away by automation within the next few years much less decade.

You're probably right that the singularity concept is basically nonsense within any living person's lifetime. However, be careful to avoid burying yourself in Luddite Hell. It's hard to see the full implications of any technological development until long after the fact, but it's easy to see that most, if not all, technological innovations lead to more jobs, not fewer. I suppose the mechanism has something to do with the fact that less labor is required per capita overall.

[mesyn191]

Re: The Singularity

I'm not a Luddite. I love technology. I just don't believe that once many blue collar manufacturing and data sifting jobs become partially or fully automated away that there'll be some sort of new field of work that'll automagically pop up to give all those out of work people something to do that will pay as much as their old job. After all why couldn't those jobs be automated away too by ever better machines? What happens to society when a large minority or even most of it becomes obsoleted and made useless by cheaper, faster, better machines that don't require healthcare and need only a little management?

I think either: laws will be passed to defend labor against automation OR those newly useless people will be effectively abandoned by society OR society rearranges itself to benefit most from the automation while attempting to distribute wealth in a equitable manner (ie. shorter work days and weeks, free or nearly free career retraining after college, higher wages or cheaper goods and services, etc.).

That last possibility would be the best IMO but I fear the 2nd one to be the most likely.

[c1ue]

Re: The Singularity

I posted that not flintlock.

Sorry, I periodically seem to lock onto the wrong name. Fixed.

Do I understand that you thing that Jaron Lanier is a technotopian? You might want to read that link. He is one of the more famous anti-technotopian writers.

Not to derail here, but what is it about programmers that makes them unfit to comment on technological progress?

No, I am actually in agreement with him.

As we speak I've been wrestling with an annoying bug for a mere 100,000 line mobile app.

I used to sell and support $1M plus software packages; even with literally dozens of Master's and Ph.D developers armed with state of the art tools, with millions of lines of unit tests, with hundreds of real life examples, goofy things would happen.

And yet somehow programs which are orders of magnitude more complex than what is mentioned above will be able to perform even more effectively, in more complex and intuitive ways, and in an affordable and timely fashion.

I know and didn't suggest they could. I think you're misreading my post or something.

No, what I was referring to is that the ability to form a shape - whether it is in metal or plastic - is a far cry from being able to form electrical behavior.

In the late '70s and '80s, you could replicate more or less state of the art LSI chips with a college laboratory and an oven.

Today the energy requirements alone to create the computer chips used in cell phones, computers, etc are likely 3 times or more the entire lifetime usage of the overall device.

Those people who say that iPads are transformative are correct: iPads do a fantastic job of converting energy into junk.

Just wait 3 years.

Of course that is unfair - all consumer electronics for the past 2 decades has fallen into this category.

[mesyn191]

Re: The Singularity

No, what I was referring to is that the ability to form a shape - whether it is in metal or plastic - is a far cry from being able to form electrical behavior.

Yea there are hard limits, if for no other reason then fundamental physics much less artificial constraints like patent law/trolls, to how fast you can make your CPU or output your widget. I'm not disagreeing with that at all! You don't need super duper Star Trek or Jetsons-esque levels of automation though to eliminate lots of jobs, which is what my point is. Given Capital's treatment of Labor in general today and socio-economic trends of wealth being concentrated on a privileged few at the top I'm not optimistic at all about technology improving our lives in general any time soon. In general I'd say technology, short of something truly ground breaking a la the steam engine when it was first introduced, doesn't really fix or significantly change society's problems.

Today the energy requirements alone to create the computer chips used in cell phones, computers, etc are likely 3 times or more the entire lifetime usage of the overall device.

I guess we better all hope that some R&D teams pull some serious solar or fusion developments out of their hat then is what you're getting at?

[c1ue]

Re: The Singularity

Yea there are hard limits, if for no other reason then fundamental physics much less artificial constraints like patent law/trolls, to how fast you can make your CPU or output your widget. I'm not disagreeing with that at all! You don't need super duper Star Trek or Jetsons-esque levels of automation though to eliminate lots of jobs, which is what my point is. Given Capital's treatment of Labor in general today and socio-economic trends of wealth being concentrated on a privileged few at the top I'm not optimistic at all about technology improving our lives in general any time soon. In general I'd say technology, short of something truly ground breaking a la the steam engine when it was first introduced, doesn't really fix or significantly change society's problems.

Fair enough.

I would note that things like engines are already largely created by machines (in production lines) anyway. The 3D machines can't perform assembly either.

Thus the main economic effect of the 3D machines would be to reduce the capital necessary to create the production lines which in turn create the parts for engines.

This is a clear benefit, but doesn't itself solve the fundamental problem of what to create: putting the ability to create into more hands should theoretically increase the pool of design talent, but this doesn't at all guarantee an increase in quality of output.

For a nascent field like HTML in 1999, publication on the Internet was dramatically democratized. Since then web site makers, HTML/Java productivity packages etc etc have been steadily increasing the everyday ability to publish on the Internet, but the actual quality hasn't seemed to increase. For a much more mature field like engines - not at all sure how much bringing in 'new blood' helps, but time will tell.

I guess we better all hope that some R&D teams pull some serious solar or fusion developments out of their hat then is what you're getting at?

I'm still formulating what this means.

This might be a complete false start, but the sheer scale of energy needs for electronics puts a very real energy 'price' on the capabilities enabled by electronics.

Barring a series of major technological changes along the lines of nanobots - the new "then a miracle occurs" type of technotopian magic - the absolute amount of energy consumed by ever increasingly complex electronics is scaling up.

Much as agriculture is heavily dependent on cheap oil (fertilizer, tractors, transport to market, pesticides, etc etc), the Internet revolution may well be similar.

[mesyn191]

Re: The Singularity

but doesn't itself solve the fundamental problem of what to create: putting the ability to create into more hands should theoretically increase the pool of design talent, but this doesn't at all guarantee an increase in quality of output.
...
For a much more mature field like engines - not at all sure how much bringing in 'new blood' helps, but time will tell.

Well improving the quality or speed at which improvements themselves can be made is a whole other can o' worms. I don't think anyone really has a clue what to do to solve that problem, which I think is why the technotopians are hoping AI's will solve our problems for us. Its a literal deus ex machina!

Lowering the bar of entry, both in terms of finances and resources, to make it easier and quicker to do any sort of research or production is probably a very good start though. From what I understand getting funding is a real problem for lots of scientists these days so they spend quite a bit of time trying to pitch their research to people with money instead of actually doing the research itself. This also effects the direction that the research tends to take. The "blue sky" research is nearly impossible to get funding for but if you're researching a new weapon or mathematical model for predicting market movements...well there is lots more cash to go around it seems.

Barring a series of major technological changes along the lines of nanobots - the new "then a miracle occurs" type of technotopian magic - the absolute amount of energy consumed by ever increasingly complex electronics is scaling up.

Much as agriculture is heavily dependent on cheap oil (fertilizer, tractors, transport to market, pesticides, etc etc), the Internet revolution may well be similar.

I wouldn't expect nanobots to be coming anytime soon myself but better 3D sensors and things like graphene transistors or "high temp" superconductors will be nice hops or skips forward. When they actually come of course, they all seem doable though.

[reggie]

Re: The Singularity

The Singularity is being created in order to cultivate a hierarchical system of social OODA Loops, where those up the chain have a permanent advantage over those below, through greater and faster processing power.

When one can get inside another's OODA loop - whether a fighter pilot, a member of a sports team, or a business person - they will win every time.

This theory was developed at DOD in the 1950's, primarily by acclaimed USAF fighter pilot John Boyd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

[btattoo]

Re: The Singularity

The Singularity is being created in order to cultivate a hierarchical system of social OODA Loops, where those up the chain have a permanent advantage over those below, through greater and faster processing power.

When one can get inside another's OODA loop - whether a fighter pilot, a member of a sports team, or a business person - they will win every time.

This theory was developed at DOD in the 1950's, primarily by acclaimed USAF fighter pilot John Boyd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

Agreed, and this is Lanier's point too. The idea of the singularity, and its great promise, encourages certain behaviors such as posting ideas, friends, likes, dislikes, etc in online public spaces (including these forums) for free. All of that information will be (is already) "controlled" in terms of access--perhaps not overtly but by the very technologies associated with the singularity--google search algorithm, adwords, and the like.

Imagine itulip if EJ never posted, but just arranged visitor post priority.

[LorenS]

Re: The Singularity

Much as agriculture is heavily dependent on cheap oil (fertilizer, tractors, transport to market, pesticides, etc etc), the Internet revolution may well be similar.

The Internet revolution is similar, hence locating server farms near cheap electricity sources. I burn more power using Google at work than I do driving to work and my truck only gets 16mpg.

Our local library costs us only $75 in taxes per year. Our internet tether is close to $100 / month. Online banking and stuff only saves a pittance in postage. The internet is nice, but it's way overrated. My kids burn way more time on "internet" homework assignments than the old newspaper and paste we used to do. Some of the assignments are pure time sinks.

[unlucky]

Re: The Singularity

Agreed, and this is Lanier's point too. The idea of the singularity, and its great promise, encourages certain behaviors such as posting ideas, friends, likes, dislikes, etc in online public spaces (including these forums) for free. All of that information will be (is already) "controlled" in terms of access--perhaps not overtly but by the very technologies associated with the singularity--google search algorithm, adwords, and the like.

Imagine itulip if EJ never posted, but just arranged visitor post priority.

If the Internet and related technologies are an experiment in mass thought control then given the level of skepticism and outright cynicism expressed on this site and other similar forums .. something has gone horribly wrong!

[mr_fibuli]

Re: The Singularity

CNC will produce a single component at a time with a single machining operation one after the other. But take the humble Wheel Nut, and assume you are going to manufacture 1 million cars, each with five nuts per wheel hub; then you need to also produce 21 million wheel nuts, (remember the one for the spare wheel). Same again for the 8, (V8 assumed), spark plugs, and remember the spark plug comes off the auto lathe complete with all distinguishing marks, de-burred, ready for plating and assembly.

When you must have huge quantities, the auto lathe is King.

While I do share your enthusiasm for the mechanical multi spindle, the German Index CNC multi spindle is a pretty amazing machine. (see: http://www.index-werke.de/de/englisc...x_ENG_HTML.htm). I worked for a company that had a mix of Davenport, Euroturn and Acme Gridley mechanical machines but the Index could do all that the mechanical machines could do and more.

Where I agree is that the machine (CNC or not) will just sit stupidly and do nothing without human intervention to set it up, program it and attend to its needs. Billions of years of development have gone into the animal brain and machines have a long way to go before they can approach a fraction of what humans can do.