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safeinOhio

(37,637 posts)
2. Accelerating Returns
Sat Jun 29, 2019, 05:36 AM
Jun 2019
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change
futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is a perceived increase in the rate of technological change throughout history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future and may or may not be accompanied by equally profound social and cultural change.




Kurzweil's The Law of Accelerating Returns[edit]
In his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil proposed "The Law of Accelerating Returns", according to which the rate of change in a wide variety of evolutionary systems (including but not limited to the growth of technologies) tends to increase exponentially.[9] He gave further focus to this issue in a 2001 essay entitled "The Law of Accelerating Returns".[10] In it, Kurzweil, after Moravec, argued for extending Moore's Law to describe exponential growth of diverse forms of technological progress. Whenever a technology approaches some kind of a barrier, according to Kurzweil, a new technology will be invented to allow us to cross that barrier. He cites numerous past examples of this to substantiate his assertions. He predicts that such paradigm shifts have and will continue to become increasingly common, leading to "technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history." He believes the Law of Accelerating Returns implies that a technological singularity will occur before the end of the 21st century, around 2045. The essay begins:

Flying cars may be around the corner, or may be not.

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