# How quickly do you think Technology will Evolve?



## Cli-Fi (Jan 2, 2016)

I assume that we lovers of Science Fiction have heard of *Moore's law *which is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years.

Considering the fact that we have done SO much over just the last 100 years, do you see technological advancements slowing down at all? Besides for the obvious, world destruction, economic collapse, nuclear war... What could make a dent in Moore's Law? 

Whenever someone complains about the state of the world, I just look to the technology industry and there things don't seem so bad. In fact, they seem rather pleasant, optimistic, and even way too idealistic.

Will we ever get to the point where we can't learn anything because we've already answered all questions? Will that be the thing to stop Moore's Law?


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 2, 2016)

Cli-Fi said:


> Will we ever get to the point where we can't learn anything because we've already answered all questions?



Not any time soon. 

The big problem in dealing with future tech is that many SF authors fail to factor in the change of human behaviour that accompanies such developments. For example, look at how mobile phones + wireless internet has completely changed how people behave.


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## millymollymo (Jan 2, 2016)

You have to balance the question with the 'consumer use' aspect. Cost effective tech, or convenient. A great deal of things are possible, if the money is there. For example, if more funders were willing (and Babbage perhaps not so proud) Babbage would have continued to explore computing back in the 1820s.
Who wants a mobile phone that can do all the things? We can't remember - or don't know how - to make them work. 

Is it right (morally/commerically viable) to have an AI driven car, that thinks that far ahead it decides whether to kill you over pedestrians?

Technology can do some absolutely amazing things. But can humanity be trusted to do the RIGHT things with the power that tech brings?


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## Cli-Fi (Jan 2, 2016)

Brian Turner said:


> Not any time soon.
> 
> The big problem in dealing with future tech is that many SF authors fail to factor in the change of human behaviour that accompanies such developments. For example, look at how mobile phones + wireless internet has completely changed how people behave.



I don't think the smartphone has hindered technological progression. In fact, it has probably increased it, if only in that specific niche industry. Tons of apps while not exactly useful for outside the smartphone platform makes our lives a bit easier. The fact that we can now look up things in seconds help various corporations, groups, and people move their ideas forward, that much quicker! 

But, it has made the some of us lazy and stupid.


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## Cli-Fi (Jan 2, 2016)

millymollymo said:


> You have to balance the question with the 'consumer use' aspect. Cost effective tech, or convenient. A great deal of things are possible, if the money is there. For example, if more funders were willing (and Babbage perhaps not so proud) Babbage would have continued to explore computing back in the 1820s.
> Who wants a mobile phone that can do all the things? We can't remember - or don't know how - to make them work.
> 
> Is it right (morally/commerically viable) to have an AI driven car, that thinks that far ahead it decides whether to kill you over pedestrians?
> ...



True I have no idea how driverless cars will be actually sold to the public. Will they be for the ultra-rich? This doesn't seem to be the case as all major car manufactures seem to be on board with its development. Will it be a ride share overseen by Uber? This doesn't seem likely at first although possible in the future... I have a feeling that it will have to include the overhaul of all major highways around the world but this has to be a major undertaking that could take possibly decades to complete. I mean we can't even build a tunnel/bridge here in NJ for under five years! So it will have to be a HUGE push like when we went to the moon.

All these concepts of a future with driverless cars are intriguing and complicated. Though, that doesn't stop me from writing about it. It's also pretty funny that the idea has only popped up a few times in science fiction literature/cinema even now.


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## Ray McCarthy (Jan 2, 2016)

Cli-Fi said:


> *Moore's law *which is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years.


It was never a law and is now basically dead. It was originally annually, then 18 months, then 2 years. It was really just Moore's target for Intel.

My 2002 laptop (1G RAM, 1.8GHz CPU, a 2.2GHz was available, 15" 1600 x 1200 ultrasharp true colour LCD, GPU with 64M RAM, 3 hours+ battery run time, USB, Firewire, ethernet, WiFi, DVD writer etc) would cost $2000 to $3000 to replace, the replacement would have less varied I/O connections.  It was HUGE step up from my 2000 and 1998 models of laptops. (I still have the one from Jan 2000, it was top of range and only 450MHz CPU, 128M RAM, 1400 x 1050 LCD with much poorer colour and viewing angle)

Technology doesn't evolve at all. It's developed based on commercial viability.




Brian Turner said:


> look at how mobile phones + wireless internet


Yet the technology existed from 1998! What changed was cheap all you can eat (or eat lots) Data plans coupled with smart phone subsidy. Not technology at all.

Most people don't realise:
Telegraph 1831
Fax 1850s
Gramophone superseded dead-end phonograph in 1890s, a CD, DVD, BlueRay is similar principle (identically it's a pressed disk with helical groove for tracking).
Programmed Computers 1939
Compilers 1956
Design of transistor 1930s, working one 1948
IC for multiple transistors in 1958.
CPU on one IC, 1972.
Modern rocket motors 1930s, Satellites from 1956, Moon Landing 1969.
Commercial LED in 1962, but observed in 1905 by Marconi staff working on crystal (semiconductor detector), Russian paper published in 1930s.

There has been a dramatic drop in the real science developments for Technological development since 1950s. What we have had in last 50 years is commercially driven refinement.

There are only maybe three or four new technologies in the "pipeline" right now.

We are seeing more "gadgets" which have short working lives (IoT junk for instance), badly finished software and nearly no security. They remind me of one of the books in the Foundation Trilogy.  You can't buy a decent radio any more and no TV in the "High Street" has as good built in sound as a 1950s TV. Tiny, tiny speakers like the ones used in thin laptops and tablets.

*We are reaching a plateau. One exception might be Genetic Engineering. *

Self Driving cars are adaptive, use sensors, LIDAR, GPS and online databases. The programs are simulated or marketed "A.I." not A.I. in a real sense. The software is fragile. There are issues of privacy and security. To an extent the tech has existed for some years on Aircraft, Ships and Trains. I'd like to see it more deployed there before there is any widespread approval of cars. It's an incremental development of the "auto pilot".

Trains it's only partly unions. Why are there STILL safety concerns on totally automated metro and trains (then later trams). Surely on basis of logic, safety, development, rational thought, we should see Trains, Metro, Ships and Planes (in that order) fully automated before trams then cars, trucks and buses?  What is Google's motive? They are NOT a tech company, but an advertising agency.


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## Cli-Fi (Jan 2, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> 1. Not technology at all.
> 
> 2. There has been a dramatic drop in the real science developments for Technological development since 1950s. What we have had in last 50 years is commercially driven refinement.
> 
> ...



1. To say that the modern day smartphone is not an advancement from the cell phone is ridiculous.
2. What do you consider real technology? Stuff that can only be done in the lab?
3. You have a point here but some of the stuff amazon is working on is pretty cool.
4. So you won't be happy unless there is real AI? Yet in the same paragraph you worry about privacy and security? You know when true AI comes out, there will probably be those same concerns, on top of a lot of OTHER concerns!

I don't understand people who say, look we've had this technology forever. Now just because most of the public is using it. It doesn't count as an advancement. Packaging technology for easy and wider public use is the very reason I work in the technology industry and most of my colleagues would agree! Yes that does count as advancing technology. Because it is now no longer in the lab or only available to the super rich.


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## Mirannan (Jan 2, 2016)

I think that the future of transport is extremely uncertain, because of the rise of driverless cars. Uber is already making serious inroads into the taxi business; in the not too distant future, I can see taxi firms become essentially garages for fleets of driverless cars. Were I a youngish taxi driver, I would be looking for a new job (and/or training for one) right about now.

The same phenomenon might well be the death knell for private ownership of transport, at least in cities and big towns. It's already a pain in the posterior, and an expensive one at that, to keep a car in a major city. But taxis are expensive because someone has to drive the cab; and he wants to be paid, and can't drive 24/7 if he wanted to. But if one could whistle up a robocab from somewhere reasonably close by and let someone else worry about maintaining it and keeping it charged...

I also think that various city governments are going to fight hard against driverless cars. Why? Because parking fees and penalties (and penalties for traffic misdemeanours) are a major cash cow, that's why. And robocars will not break the law - at all, most likely. That won't be the reason given, of course.

One more thing: A major obstacle might be the legal one. Say that a pedestrian (or early on, a car with a driver) is hit by a robocar. Who is responsible? The driver? There isn't one; that's the whole point. The manufacturer? The company that wrote the software?


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## Ray McCarthy (Jan 2, 2016)

Cli-Fi said:


> 1. To say that the modern day smartphone is not an advancement from the cell phone is ridiculous.


*I never said that at all!*

We had smartphones from 1998. I had one in 2001. I designed one in 1989. They were possible from about 1985. The *cost* of data made the idea pointless.
What I said was that the change in billing and subsidies is what made smartphones a success, *not the technology*.



Cli-Fi said:


> Packaging technology for easy and wider public use is the very reason I work in the technology industry and most of my colleagues would agree! Yes that does count as advancing technology. Because it is now no longer in the lab or only available to the super rich.


No, that's commercialisation. My argument is that increasingly we are just seeing cosmetic changes. The underlying technology advances are basically plateuing, the underlying science even more so.



Mirannan said:


> Uber is already making serious inroads into the taxi business;


Uber is only a booking system.



Mirannan said:


> Say that a pedestrian (or early on, a car with a driver) is hit by a robocar. Who is responsible? The driver? There isn't one; that's the whole point. The manufacturer? The company that wrote the software?


Well, this is good point. The legal situation can look to trains, plains, ships that are automated or on autopilot.
It's obviously premature to have driverless cars.


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## Ray McCarthy (Jan 2, 2016)

Cli-Fi said:


> 2. What do you consider real technology? Stuff that can only be done in the lab?
> 3. You have a point here but some of the stuff amazon is working on is pretty cool.
> 4. So you won't be happy unless there is real AI? Yet in the same paragraph you worry about privacy and security? You know when true AI comes out, there will probably be those same concerns, on top of a lot of OTHER concerns!


2) Anything that can be manufactured and sold. Some isn't sold  because it doesn’t actually work, and others because there isn't a motive. (profit isn't the only one)
3)Examples? I know of NOTHING that Amazon is working on that isn't already in the market. You know they are not a tech company? Almost all their tech is bought in and all is commodity. They are a MERCHANT.
4) Privacy and Security are completely separate issues to AI. I've been involved in writing SW since 1979 and studied "AI" even at UCD, So far it's all marketing speak and less real than so called "Cloud" which is only marketing speak for remote hosted services. Internet has replaced 1960s  & 1970s leased lines.  I won't know what to make of "A.I." or if I'll be "happy unless there is real AI" until I see it. At the minute it doesn't exist and no-one honest knows what it might be, other than a suspicion that it's impossible, or if it is possible, like real intelligence in nature they'll recognise it when they see it.


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## Cli-Fi (Jan 2, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> *I never said that at all!*
> 
> We had smartphones from 1998. I had one in 2001. I designed one in 1989. They were possible from about 1985. The *cost* of data made the idea pointless.
> What I said was that the change in billing and subsidies is what made smartphones a success, *not the technology*.



So faster internet, wider access to the internet, advancements in hard drive technology, advancements software, the App Store all those are meaningless, huh?


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## Ray McCarthy (Jan 2, 2016)

Cli-Fi said:


> So faster internet, wider access to the internet, advancements in hard drive technology, advancements software, the App Store all those are meaningless, huh?


Those are incremental changes, not advances at all in the last 15 years.


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## Cli-Fi (Jan 2, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> Those are incremental changes, not advances at all.



Well see I _would _call an incremental change, an advancement. In fact, I would define that as part of the definition of advancement. Afterall, once you finish your first year of college you have advanced on to being a second year, but it is also a change with more workload.


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## Cli-Fi (Jan 2, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> 1. 2) Anything that can be manufactured and sold.
> 2. 3)Examples? I know of NOTHING that Amazon is working on that isn't already in the market. You know they are not a tech company? Almost all their tech is bought in and all is commodity. They are a MERCHANT.
> 3. 4) Privacy and Security are completely separate issues to AI. I've been involved in writing SW since 1979 and studied "AI" even at UCD, So far it's all marketing speak and less real than so called "Cloud" which is only marketing speak for remote hosted services. Internet has replaced 1960s  & 1970s leased lines.  I won't know what to make of "A.I." or if I'll be "happy unless there is real AI" until I see it. At the minute it doesn't exist and no-one honest knows what it might be, other than a suspicion that it's impossible, or if it is possible, like real intelligence in nature they'll recognise it when they see it.



1. You just argued that the smartphone was successful not because of technology and it wasn't a real advancement, it was just sold differently. Now you are saying that technology can be defined as _anything_ that can be manufactured and sold. Well you can't have it both ways. A smartphone is manufactured and sold! Though I would argue that it _has_ to be sold differently _because of_ the way it is made and packaged together but that's not _why_ it was. 

2. The Kindle Readers are pretty neat, and Amazon Echo isn't really useless. I know people who use it for a lot of things in their home. Though, not much use can come from it from apartment dwellers. Amazon also has robot workers in their warehouses, but I'm sure you'll find some problem with them. Give them time. Don't be so quick to judge. 

3. Why do you have a problem with marketing speak? Sure it helps sells things, but in the end the public needs to be aware of the things the tech industry comes out with if they want to understand why they should buy it. If the marketing speak fails, the public won't buy it and the product will fail. You are acting like tech companies have no interest in the greater good and all they care about is selling crappy gadgets that have existed for years. That is a much too simplistic view of the industry and I would seriously reconsider that world-view especially since MOST Tech CEOs anyway, donate their life earnings to charity!


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## Ray McCarthy (Jan 2, 2016)

The thread title is
*How quickly do you think Technology will Evolve?.*
That's the question I'm answering:
1) It doesn't evolve at all. Nature may evolve. Technology is developed due to advances in science, based on various motives, mostly profit.
2) What ever it's doing, other than in Genetic Engineering, it's not had much in the way of underlying science advance since 1950s, we see incremental development that is plateauing. Each "new" generation of hard drives, CPUs, Memory, cars, GPUs is requiring an order of magnitude more investment in production for smaller and now insignificant advances in performance, capacity etc.  Better Internet for all now just depends on more people getting fibre, not new tech. Many people are stuck on 15 year tech running on 100 year old copper phone tech. 

So real advancement is really plateaued about 10 years ago, though of course not everyone has what's available yet.

Amazon's, Apple's and Google's App/Book/music stores only benefit Amazon, Apple, Google and some sellers. They are anti-consumer walled gardens, tantamount to cartels. A retrograde step.


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## Cli-Fi (Jan 2, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> 1. The thread title is
> *How quickly do you think Technology will Evolve?.*
> That's the question I'm answering:
> 
> ...



1. Wow give me a break, It's a phrase used in the industry. Do a simple google search: Google. You'll find tons of arguments. I'm not asking if technology does evolve. I'm asking how fast will it do so. You have not answered the question. You have just said Technology stopped evolving. Which is false! 

2. NOT TRUE! Google and Facebook are working on ways to deliver more internet and more internet services to people who might not otherwise have them in remote areas of the world. They have already deployed some of these services. Besides, what's wrong with getting fiber where there was no fiber before? That's advancements in speed, bandwidth, and infrastructure! In fact I moved to the location I am now mostly due to that reason!   

3. Also not true. The human species are NOT mindless drones. We can use these services to inspire us and with greater access to more content it only inspires us to do more unique and different things. There may be too much, but that's is needed for competition. You can't say Twitter and Facebook are on the same level as Myspace! Myspace didn't start revolutions and change history.


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## Ray McCarthy (Jan 2, 2016)

Cli-Fi said:


> You just argued that the smartphone was successful not because of technology and it wasn't a real advancement, it was just sold differently. Now you are saying that technology can be defined as _anything_ that can be manufactured and sold. Well you can't have it both ways. A smartphone is manufactured and sold! Though I would argue that it _has_ to be sold differently _because of_ the way it is made and packaged together but that's not _why_ it was.


What has that to do with anything?  Smart phones have incrementally improved since 1998. Change in data price plans made them attractive to general public. Nothing to do with technology for over 15 years.



Cli-Fi said:


> 3. Why do you have a problem with marketing speak?


Mostly it's lies conning people and companies into buying what they shouldn't and allowing rubbish to compete unfairly with good products. "The Cloud" may kill most people if banks, financial companies and retailer continue to outsource to so called "cloud providers."



Cli-Fi said:


> 2. The Kindle Readers are pretty neat, and Amazon Echo isn't really useless.


Yes Kindles are. But not an *Amazon* development. I played with Sony PRC and reviewed many similar eInk readers years before Amazon bought mobi and killed off most of the Competition. We were going to use similar tech in 2005. I have a Kindle and a Kobo. All my family has them, but how how is that relevant to the thread title? The point is that that is now mature technology. Only Amazon can afford to sell them at cost. The last 3 generations have been tiny improvements. We have reached a plateau in eInk. We might get more form factors (the Sony 13.8" is nice but too expensive). I hope we do, that's purely product development, not technology advances).
The Echo is commodity parts and totally creepy. Badly and unimaginatively done too.

Actually compare to eReading GUIs available even 20 years ago, the Kindle and Kobo have very poor software, one Android with small GUI and one is a stock Linux. They seem to have only put much thought into how to advertise their books rather than how a user would want to organise the books.


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## Cli-Fi (Jan 2, 2016)

Mirannan said:


> 1. The same phenomenon might well be the death knell for private ownership of transport, at least in cities and big towns. It's already a pain in the posterior, and an expensive one at that, to keep a car in a major city. But taxis are expensive because someone has to drive the cab; and he wants to be paid, and can't drive 24/7 if he wanted to. But if one could whistle up a robocab from somewhere reasonably close by and let someone else worry about maintaining it and keeping it charged...
> 
> 2. I also think that various city governments are going to fight hard against driverless cars. Why? Because parking fees and penalties (and penalties for traffic misdemeanours) are a major cash cow, that's why. And robocars will not break the law - at all, most likely. That won't be the reason given, of course.
> 
> 3. One more thing: A major obstacle might be the legal one. Say that a pedestrian (or early on, a car with a driver) is hit by a robocar. Who is responsible? The driver? There isn't one; that's the whole point. The manufacturer? The company that wrote the software?



1. True, I think that will go away as more and more people choose driverless cars. Driverless cars however become a problem in the countryside. Here in America we have what some like to call huge states full of nothing and nobody! Some of these patches of land might be bigger than some European Countries. So I do not know how DCs will work there.

2. I for one am not worried about Uber's lobbying efforts: Why Did Uber Beat Bill de Blasio?
Uber has an army of at least 161 lobbyists and they're crushing regulators

3. Someone somewhere has to think of a rule for this and likely the first time it happens they will. Probably not, before the fact. Because DCs are marketed as safer than regular cars. This has to be like the Three Robotic laws! Let's chew on this awhile. I don't see how, it can't be the manufacture's fault. It's also unclear, if Google, Apple, Uber et al, use their own software or contract with others to make the DCs work.


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## Ray McCarthy (Jan 2, 2016)

Cli-Fi said:


> I'm asking how fast will it do so. You have not answered the question. You have just said Technology stopped evolving. Which is false!


No, I said that it's NEVER evolved. I said people develop it based on underlying science, apart from Genetics, the rate of development has been dramatically slowing, in many area we are reaching a plateau. That's not the same as stopped.

"You have just said Technology stopped evolving. " I never said that

Incremental improvements in "new" generations of  chips, hard drives etc need doubling or more of investment. Simple mathematical analysis reveals were the plateau idea comes from.

On radio / RF techniques we reached the practical level of approach to the Shannon Limit (discovered by 1948!) over 15 years ago.

*Moore's Law never was a law. Only Moore's target for Intel, revised 3 times.  It's been dead for years. *14nm devices are not really 14nm, that's the smallest feature.  We have only been fitting more stuff on a chip for the last 8 years mainly by:
1) Bigger chips.
2) Stacking layers (3D)
3) Stacking chips. I had the Samsung SC6400 ARM development kit. Same chip as Apple put in their first iPhone (no new Apple tech in it either!). It allowed cheaper PCB, media player, phone, tablet for everyone and faster time to market. It achieved it by CPU (ARM), Flash and RAM chips in layers in one slightly fatter IC package. Intel STILL can't do this, 8 years later, as the x86 chips run too hot.

Where is the new science to continue any rapid technological advancement?

Genetic Engineering.
Bulk bi-stable materials for replacing Flash memory.
Graphene maybe for something ... Problems with production

....?

What else?


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## Cli-Fi (Jan 2, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> 1. What has that to do with anything?  Smart phones have incrementally improved since 1998. Change in data price plans made them attractive to general public. Nothing to do with technology for over 15 years.
> 
> 2. Mostly it's lies conning people and companies into buying what they shouldn't and allowing rubbish to compete unfairly with good products. "The Cloud" may kill most people if banks, financial companies and retailer continue to outsource to so called "cloud providers."
> 
> 3. Yes Kindles are. But not an *Amazon* development. I played with Sony PRC and reviewed many similar eInk readers years... The Echo is commodity parts and totally creepy. Badly and unimaginatively done too.



1. Because you argued hypocritically. You said the smartphone was created due to one thing and then you said it was created due to a different thing!  Funny. I think the majority of the public would agree that the data plan is the least appealing feature of the smartphone. Although, only recently (within the last year) have certain carriers been forgiving themselves for charging HIGH amounts for low data plans and have incrementally increased the amount of data they give us consumers. I remember back when data plans for a cell phone didn't exist. So I'm not so sure I know what exactly you are talking about here. Cell Phones had Data Plans in 1998?? 

2. But not everyone works in technology. We may get to that point in the future, but now we have grandma's buying laptops and e-reader. Do you really expect them to learn the history of devices? 

3. The package that Amazon sells is indeed an Amazon development. They created it and put it together in a way that made it more appealing to the public than the others that came before. And your statement about the Echo is just an opinion, but still a small advancement in home automation.


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## mosaix (Jan 2, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> 1) Bigger chips.
> 2) Stacking layers (3D)
> 3) Stacking chips.



It could be argued, Ray, that that's technology 'evolving'. Not chips evolving but technology generally.


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## Ray McCarthy (Jan 2, 2016)

Cli-Fi said:


> Google, Apple, Uber et al,



Google's motive unknown. Someone like Ford will make them, if they do it at all.
Apple appear only to be developing in car systems for car makers
Uber are only a booking system, they use ordinary cars with ordinary drivers. The question is are they employing the drivers? Lots of spin on that and everything else from Uber.
Tesla may be moving toward a self driving car (it sort of nearly does now)
There is no real new tech in Driverless cars. They are trying to improve the databases.
At the minute a DOS attack on the LIDAR is easy. 
The liability issues are the same as with Trains, planes and Ships. There is work on both driver less/ self driving trucks and the idea or "road trains", slaved trucks with no driver that follow a lead truck (At least three European Truck companies).



Cli-Fi said:


> Because you argued hypocritically. You said the smartphone was created due to one thing and then you said it was created due to a different thing! Funny.


No I didn't,  *1998 to 2007 smart phones and data existed*. The technology to do it economically is over THIRTY years old. But you either got billed per second for connect time OR about 1000x more than current data plans. Till subsidised handsets and dataplans came in only some corporates did it. 
Current UK & Ireland data plans are unsustainablely  LOW in price, they are subsidised by voice calls and SMS (texts cost operator almost nothing). The real cost to an operator of data rather than voice is about 350x MINIMUM per an hours solid streaming vs an hours solid talk!
(USA Cell phone system couldn't do data sensibly, too slow, in Europe, 14.4K or 28.8 K was possible in 1998 and by 2005 was 245K to 3Mbps, my fixed line was only 19K till 2005, when I manage to get 8Mbps upgrade).

Really I don't understand what you are trying to argue. Yes, since 1976 (40 years) we have seen amazing advances, those are mostly based on 1950s science and since 2002 the rate of advance has been rapidly slowing. There has been* almost* no new science to fuel future advances, except in Genetic Engineering.
I had a wonderful Nokia smart phone in 2002, with fax, email, web browser, real spreadsheet, database wordprocessor, outer phone LCD and keypad, inner 80 column wide colour screen. Data was billed per second of upload/download time. My employer reluctantly paid the bill. It replaced an earlier monochrome smart phone.


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## Cli-Fi (Jan 2, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> *Moore's Law never was a law. Only Moore's target for Intel, revised 3 times.  It's been dead for years. *
> 
> Where is the new science to continue any rapid technological advancement?
> 
> ...



You seriously have to stop repeating yourself. Because that doesn't make it sound any better. I'm not sure how you got it in your head that a technology advancement has to have entirely new technology in it for it to be an advancement. Otherwise that would be a CREATION. Not an advancement! You have argued continuously that the tech world does not create. OK but they still advance and it some cases, they advance the world and push it forward too! Now, does the tech world create new worlds? Not yet, but it can be argued they create virtual ones  

I'll give you three more examples: 
1. Holograms/ Microsoft Hololens: You'll be hard pressed to find another example of that tech anywhere that isn't pitiful. 
2. 3D Printing Technology: Also quite a young new technology possibly inspired by your favorite subject genetic engineering. 
3. What Google is doing with Robots and indeed slight AI is quite unmatched elsewhere. Just do a google search for Boston Dynamics. I can go on for how these robots are different and more advanced than the others you see out there, but then I'd have to write you a book.


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 2, 2016)

Right, getting this thread back on topic.


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## mosaix (Jan 2, 2016)

Cli-Fi said:


> Considering the fact that we have done SO much over just the last 100 years, do you see technological advancements slowing down at all?



We may well come to an end of what we can do with existing technology. Advancement in existing areas may slow but I think new areas of research will spring up as these old areas die out.


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## Vladd67 (Jan 2, 2016)

Mirannan said:


> I think that the future of transport is extremely uncertain, because of the rise of driverless cars. Uber is already making serious inroads into the taxi business; in the not too distant future, I can see taxi firms become essentially garages for fleets of driverless cars. Were I a youngish taxi driver, I would be looking for a new job (and/or training for one) right about now.
> 
> The same phenomenon might well be the death knell for private ownership of transport, at least in cities and big towns. It's already a pain in the posterior, and an expensive one at that, to keep a car in a major city. But taxis are expensive because someone has to drive the cab; and he wants to be paid, and can't drive 24/7 if he wanted to. But if one could whistle up a robocab from somewhere reasonably close by and let someone else worry about maintaining it and keeping it charged...
> 
> ...


Could Self-Driving Cars Spell the End of Ownership?


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## REBerg (Jan 2, 2016)

Seems to me that the question is not how quickly technology is evolving/advancing, but _where_ these developments are taking place. While we continuously pour resources into cell phones, self-driving cars and other non-essential gadgets, we are funneling little or nothing into our long-term survival as a species.

I resisted the smartphone for as long as I could. Now that I have one, I feel no need to replace it with the latest version. I'm sure the planned obsolescence built into an industry devoid of moral conscience will make that decision for me in the not too distant future. Therein lies the problem.

Technological change, to use a more direction-neutral word, is driven by the demands of a consumer-powered economy. As long as people are standing in line to shell out hundreds of dollars to have the latest iPhone possessing one or two more bells and whistles than the one already in their pockets, the endless series will continue.

How comforting will it be to have that iPhone 999z in a few decades when Humanity is huddled on what remains of the Earth's land mass, gasping barely breathable air, looking for a way out it never developed? Assuming that we are able to successfully redirect out efforts into saving ourselves, our technological evolution cannot possibly go quickly enough.


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## Nick B (Jan 2, 2016)

REBerg said:


> Seems to me that the question is not how quickly technology is evolving/advancing, but _where_ these developments are taking place. While we continuously pour resources into cell phones, self-driving cars and other non-essential gadgets, we are funneling little or nothing into our long-term survival as a species.



Yep. That about sums it up. The trillions spent on commercial rubbish we don't need could be spent on our actual future as a species.


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## mosaix (Jan 2, 2016)

Quellist said:


> Yep. That about sums it up. The trillions spent on commercial rubbish we don't need could be spent on our actual future as a species.



It'll only happen, Quellist, if there's profit in it.


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## hardsciencefanagain (Jan 2, 2016)

Creativity,a sense of exploration,the wish to ameliorate the circumstances of your fellow men are among the things most often NOT at the root of innovation.


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## Hex (Jan 2, 2016)

We are getting better at human interfaces -- thankfully -- but there's still a long way to go. Speech recognition 'in the wild', for example, when the system doesn't have a restricted and expected vocabulary set to choose from (and there's background noise) is often dire. I don't know how good Siri is, but other systems are pretty appalling. 

Compare a human being's ability to extract speech from a noisy background, detect humour/ sarcasm/ emotion etc. and respond appropriately and usefully.


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## Cli-Fi (Jan 3, 2016)

Indeed, the profit factor matters very little in this discussion and that is NOT what I wanted the discussion to be about. People have brought up various technologies like the Driverless cars and stimulated AI to discuss. That was more in line with what I was going for. How fast do you think, those technologies will evolve. I want to talk about technology and not economics. You can all make another thread for that.


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## Edward M. Grant (Jan 25, 2016)

Cli-Fi said:


> People have brought up various technologies like the Driverless cars and stimulated AI to discuss. That was more in line with what I was going for. How fast do you think, those technologies will evolve.



Driverless cars are pretty silly. By the time they can be made to work properly, we won't need cars any more, because we'll just rent a drone wherever we want to go. Their main use would probably be exploring the Martian and Lunar wilderness, which is much simpler anyway as you don't have to worry about kids running out in the street.

AI will be twenty years away for at least the next century.


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## AstroZon (Jun 22, 2016)

1. Computers will evolve from binary to ternary.  They'll have to if we ever want a true thinking computer, one capable of performing self assembly, or one left to make desicions far from earth. They might be ternary / binary hybrids with binary nodes and a ternary central processor.  

2.  Faster than light communication.  Entangled pairs are one way that is theoretically possible now - at least as far as we can send a ship or probe with an entangled pair transceiver inside.  For communication across the galaxy, we'll figure out an interdimensional way to send and receive data.  It will probably come from String Theory.


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## Ray McCarthy (Jun 22, 2016)

AstroZon said:


> Computers will evolve from binary to ternary.


No. On three levels! (ironically).
Abandoned long ago as was decimal rather than binary based numbers. Binary is the most efficient.
Three levels rather than two makes the system more easily corrupted by noise. Binary is the most noise immune system. Some communications and storage systems do use more than two levels when capacity or speed is more important than noise immunity. Then there is an overhead for error correction. The encoding of data is still binary.
Computers don't and can't evolve. They are designed and programmed by humans.
Inherently all (non-quantum) digital computers are based on switches. These can only be binary, on or off. Quantum computers use Qubits which have both binary states at the same time. They have rather specialised application so won't replace ordinary binary computers.



AstroZon said:


> Faster than light communication. Entangled pairs are one way that is theoretically possible now


Actually no!
The two items with entangled pairs are_ like_ randomly shuffled packs of cards, that have NOT been examined. Changing one of the entangled particles does change the other - INSTANTLY- but causality, speed of light and relativity are not really bypassed. It's equivalent to the remote shuffled cards having the order changed. Since you don't know when it happens and don't know the state, you can't tell it has happened. No information is sent faster than light. Quantum Entanglement can be used to show if an optical signal has been tampered with in transit. Never, ever to make an Ansible.
Similarly "quantum transportation" is not actual transportation.

xkcd: Researcher Translation
Hover text: "A technology that is '20 years away' will be 20 years away indefinitely."


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## AstroZon (Jun 22, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> No. On three levels! (ironically).
> Abandoned long ago as was decimal rather than binary based numbers. Binary is the most efficient.
> 
> Inherently all (non-quantum) digital computers are based on switches. These can only be binary, on or off.



Abandoned in the early stages of of digital programming because binary was by far easier. Yes, I agree.  Development teams were just trying to design operational computers.  Why make it more complected than it already was?   But a continued development of binary will only result in computers that can execute more and larger instruction sets. They'll get faster and be able to do more things at one time, but we'll never reach AI like that.  We must take computers and languages into another dimension (figuratively speaking.)

Ternary computers operate with switches just like binary, but instead of On and Off, they have -1, 0, and +1.   The end result is a computer that can make a decision of sorts, or at least computate dimensional variables.  Binary programming, as good as it is, is purely linear.  Right now, 56 years after the Setun ternary computer was built in the USSR, several teams are working out the necessary logic gates for modern ternary computers.  I'm certainly not the only one who thinks that its the next logical progression.  

I don't understand what error correction has to do with anything.  Developers will certainly employ it in their ternary OSs.  I also still think that the end result will be something of a hybrid, a ternary central processor and ternary memory coupled to binary data nodes.  The data will be translated into ternary when needed.


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## Ray McCarthy (Jun 22, 2016)

AstroZon said:


> But a continued development of binary will only result in computers that can execute more and larger instruction sets. They'll get faster and be able to do more things at one time, but we'll never reach AI like that. We must take computers and languages into another dimension (figuratively speaking.)


ARM is replacing Intel x86 and is simpler and smaller instructions.



AstroZon said:


> Abandoned in the early stages of of digital programming because binary was by far easier


It was a LATE idea, quickly abandoned. All the first digital computers used binary, i.e. on/off switches made from relays or valves (tubes), from the Z1 in 1938. Later transistors replaced valves.


AstroZon said:


> Ternary computers operate with switches just like binary, but instead of On and Off, they have -1, 0, and +1.


Zero computational advantage and a disadvantage. Boolean Algebra needs binary.
AI isn't limited at all by computer technology, but by our lack of understanding of what Intelligence is.

High Level programming is the only viable way to do programming. Binary is only visible in it by the simpler constructs of loop exits and IF tests. More than binary tests are handled by the Case or Select type constructs that allow  -1, 0, and +1, if you need them.



AstroZon said:


> Ternary computers operate with switches just like binary, but instead of On and Off, they have -1, 0, and +1


No, because such structures are inefficient and switches are either on or off. It's just technobable, nonsense.



AstroZon said:


> The end result is a computer that can make a decision of sorts, or at least computate dimensional variables. Binary programming, as good as it is, is purely linear. Right now, 56 years after the Setun ternary computer was built in the USSR, several teams are working out the necessary logic gates for modern ternary computers. I'm certainly not the only one who thinks that its the next logical progression.


Absolutely no serious hardware designer or serious computer scientist espouses Ternary. Ternary is no help at all for AI.

We may have Quantum Co-Processors on computers. Effectively switches that are both open and closed. Superposition. They won't replace the main core.


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## REBerg (Jun 22, 2016)

AstroZon said:


> Abandoned in the early stages of of digital programming because binary was by far easier. Yes, I agree.  Development teams were just trying to design operational computers.  Why make it more complected than it already was?   But a continued development of binary will only result in computers that can execute more and larger instruction sets. They'll get faster and be able to do more things at one time, but we'll never reach AI like that.  We must take computers and languages into another dimension (figuratively speaking.)
> 
> Ternary computers operate with switches just like binary, but instead of On and Off, they have -1, 0, and +1.   The end result is a computer that can make a decision of sorts, or at least computate dimensional variables.  Binary programming, as good as it is, is purely linear.  Right now, 56 years after the Setun ternary computer was built in the USSR, several teams are working out the necessary logic gates for modern ternary computers.  I'm certainly not the only one who thinks that its the next logical progression.
> 
> I don't understand what error correction has to do with anything.  Developers will certainly employ it in their ternary OSs.  I also still think that the end result will be something of a hybrid, a ternary central processor and ternary memory coupled to binary data nodes.  The data will be translated into ternary when needed.


Where would we be today if we had always accepted existing technology as the best and only possible?
I had fun with my dog and a red laser pointer. I'm also having fun with my blu-ray disc player.


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## J Riff (Jun 22, 2016)

Built-in obsolesence is unstoppable now, as millions of people look for meaningful work. If everyting worked perfectly for fifty years, like it kind of used to, the resulting bread line would stretch around the world.
 I think tech evolves till it gets too dangerous for the masses, then it gets concealed and techbabbled about until no-one knows from what. Forbidden secrets of the Aztecs!


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## Ray McCarthy (Jun 22, 2016)

REBerg said:


> Where would we be today if we had always accepted existing technology as the best and only possible?


I don't think anyone involved in Engineering in the 8000 years has thought that?


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