How quickly do you think Technology will Evolve?

[Cli-Fi]

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?

 

[Brian G Turner]

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.

 

[millymollymo]

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?

 

[Cli-Fi]

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.

 

[Cli-Fi]

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?

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.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

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.

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.

 

[Cli-Fi]

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.

3. 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.

4. 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".

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.

 

[Mirannan]

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?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

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.

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.

Uber is already making serious inroads into the taxi business;

Uber is only a booking system.

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.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

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.

 

[Cli-Fi]

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?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

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.

 

[Cli-Fi]

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.

 

[Cli-Fi]

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!

 

[Ray McCarthy]

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.

 

[Cli-Fi]

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

2. 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.

3. 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.

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.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

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.

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."

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.

 

[Cli-Fi]

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.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

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?

 

[Cli-Fi]

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.