by Ray Kurzweil
As I pointed out earlier, only a tiny fraction of the. stuff in the Universe, or even on a life- and technology-bearing planet such as Earth, can be considered to be part of evolution’s inventions. Thus evolution does not contradict the Law of Increasing Entropy. Indeed, it depends on it to provide a never-ending supply of options.
As I noted, given the emergence of life, the emergence of a technology-creating species—and of technology—is inevitable. Technology is the continuation of evolution by other means, and is itself an evolutionary process. So it, too, speeds up.
A primary reason that evolution—of life-forms or of technology—speeds up is that it builds on its own increasing order. Innovations created by evolution encourage and enable faster evolution. In the case of the evolution of life-forms, the most notable example is DNA, which provides a recorded and protected transcription of life’s design from which to launch further experiments.
In the case of the evolution of technology, ever improving human methods of recording information have fostered further technology. The first computers were designed on paper and assembled by hand. Today, they are designed on computer workstations with the computers themselves working out many details of the next generation’s design, and are then produced in fully automated factories with human guidance but limited direct intervention.
The evolutionary process of technology seeks to improve capabilities in an exponential fashion. Innovators seek to improve things by multiples. Innovation is multiplicative, not additive. Technology, like any evolutionary process, builds on itself. This aspect will continue to accelerate when the technology itself takes full control of its own progression.
We can thus conclude the following with regard to the evolution of life-forms, and of technology:
The Law of Accelerating Returns as Applied to an Evolutionary Process:
▲ An evolutionary process is not a closed system; therefore, evolution draws upon the chaos in the larger system in which it takes place for its options for diversity; and
▲ Evolution builds on its own increasing order.
Therefore:
▲ In an evolutionary process, order increases exponentially.
Therefore:
▲ Time exponentially speeds up.
Therefore:
▲ The returns (that is, the valuable products of the process) accelerate.
The phenomenon of time slowing down and speeding up is occurring simultaneously. Cosmologically speaking, the Universe continues to slow down. Evolution, now most noticeably in the form of human-created technology, continues to speed up. These are the two sides—two interleaved spirals—of the Law of Time and Chaos.
The spiral we are most interested in—the Law of Accelerating Returns—gives us ever greater order in technology, which inevitably leads to the emergence of computation. Computation is the essence of order. It provides the ability for a technology to respond in a variable and appropriate manner to its environment to carry out its mission. Thus computational technology is also an evolutionary process, and also builds on its own progress. The time to accomplish a fixed objective gets exponentially shorter over time (for example, ninety years for the first MIP per thousand dollars versus one day for an additional MIP today). That the power of computing grows exponentially over time is just another way to say the same thing.
So Where Does That Leave Moore’s Law?
Well, it still leaves it dead by the year 2020. Moore’s Law came along in 1958 just when it was needed and will have done its sixty years of service by 2018, a rather long period of time for a paradigm nowadays. Unlike Moore’s Law, however, the Law of Accelerating Returns is not a temporary methodology. It is a basic attribute of the nature of time and chaos-a sublaw of the Law of Time and Chaos—and describes a wide range of apparently divergent phenomena and trends. In accordance with the Law of Accelerating Returns, another computational technology will pick up where Moore’s Law will have left off, without missing a beat.
Most Exponential Trends Hit a Wall ... but Not This One
A frequent criticism of predictions of the future is that they rely on mindless extrapolation of current trends without consideration of forces that may terminate or alter that trend. This criticism is particularly relevant in the case of exponential trends. A classic example is a species happening upon a hospitable new habitat, perhaps transplanted there by human intervention (rabbits in Australia, say). Its numbers multiply exponentially for a while, but this phenomenon is quickly terminated when the exploding population runs into a new predator or the limits of its environment. Similarly, the geometric population growth of our own species has been a source of anxiety, but changing social and economic factors, including growing prosperity, have greatly slowed this expansion in recent years, even in developing countries.
THE LEARNING CURVE: SLUG VERSUS HUMAN
The “learning curve” describes the mastery of a skill over time. As an entity-slug or human-learns a new skill, the newly acquired ability builds on itself, and so the learning curve starts out looking like the exponential growth we see in the Law of Accelerating Returns. Skills tend to be bunded, so as the new expertise is mastered, the law of diminishing returns sets in, and growth in mastery levels off. So the learning curve is what we call an S curve because exponential growth followed by a leveling off looks like an S leaning slightly to the right:
The learning curve is remarkably universal: Most multicellular creatures do it. Slugs, for example, follow the learning curve when learning how to ascend a new tree in search of leaves. Humans, of course, are always learning something new.
But there’s a salient difference between humans and slugs. Humans are capable of innovation, which is the creation and retention of new skills and knowledge. Innovation is the driving force in the Law of Accderating Returns, and eliminates the leveling-off part of the S curve. So innovation turns the S curve into indefinite exponential expansion.
Overcoming the S curve is another way to express the unique status of the human species. No other species appears to do this. Why are we unique in this way, given that other primates are so close to us in terms of genetic similarity?
The reason is that the ability to overcome the S curve defines a new ecological niche. As I pointed out, there were indeed other humanoid species and subspecies capable of innovation, but the niche seems to have tolerated only one surviving competitor. But we will have company in the twenty-first century as our machines join us in this exclusive niche.
Based on this, some observers are quick to predict the demise of the exponential growth of computing.
But the growth predicted by the Law of Accelerating Returns is an exception to the frequently cited limitations to exponential growth. Even a catastrophe, as apparently befell our reptilian cohabitants in the late Cretaceous period, only sidesteps an evolutionary process, which then picks up the pieces and continues unabated (unless the entire process is wiped out). An evolutionary process accelerates because it builds on its past achievements, which includes improvements in its own means for further evolution. In the evolution of life-forms, in addition to DNA-based genetic coding, the innovation of sexual reproduction provided for improved means of experimenting with diverse characteristics within an otherwise homogenous population. The establishment of basic body plans of modern animals in the “Cambrian explosion,” about 570 million years ago, allowed evolution to concentrate on higher-level features such as expanded brain function. The inventions of evolution in one era provide the means, and often the intelligence, for innovation in the next.
The Law of Accelerating Returns applies equally to the evolutionary process of computation, which inherently will grow exponentially and essentially without limit. The two resources it needs-the growing order of the evolving technology itself and the chaos from which an evolutionary process draws its options for further diversity—are unbounded. Ultimately, the innovation needed for further turns of the screw will come from the machines themselves.
How will t
he power of computing continue to accelerate after Moore’s Law dies? We are just beginning to explore the third dimension in chip design. The vast majority of today’s chips are flat, whereas our brain is organized in three dimensions. We live in a three-dimensional world, so why not use the third dimension? Improvements in semiconductor materials, including superconducting circuits that don’t generate heat, will enable us to develop chips—that is, cubes—with thousands of layers of circuitry that, combined with far smaller component geometries, will improve computing power by a factor of many millions. And there are more than enough other new computing technologies waiting in the wings—nanotube, optical, crystalline, DNA, and quantum (which we’ll visit in chapter 6, “Building New Brains”)—to keep the Law of Accelerating Returns going in the world of computation for a very long time.
A Planetary Affair
The introduction of technology on Earth is not merely the private affair of one of the Earth’s innumerable species. It is a pivotal event in the history of the planet. Evolution’s grandest creation—human intelligence—is providing the means for the next stage of evolution, which is technology. The emergence of technology is predicted by the Law of Accelerating Returns. The Homo sapiens sapiens subspecies emerged only tens of thousands of years after its human forebears. According to the Law of Accelerating Returns, the next stage of evolution should measure its salient events in mere thousands of years, too quick for DNA-based evolution. This next stage of evolution was necessarily created by human intelligence itself, another example of the exponential engine of evolution using its innovations from one period (human beings) to create the next (intelligent machines).
Evolution draws upon the great chaos in its midst—the ever increasing entropy governed by the flip side of the Law of Time and Chaos—for its options for innovation. These two strands of the Law of Time and Chaos—time exponentially slowing down due to the increasing chaos predicted by the second law of thermodynamics; and time exponentially speeding up due to the increasing order created by evolution—coexist and progress without limit. In particular, the resources of evolution, order and chaos, are unbounded. I stress this point because it is crucial to understanding the evolutionary—and revolutionary—nature of computer technology.
The emergence of technology was a milestone in the evolution of intelligence on Earth because it represented a new means of evolution recording its designs. The next milestone will be technology creating its own next generation without human intervention. That there is only a period of tens of thousands of years between these two milestones is another example of the exponentially quickening pace that is evolution.
The Inventor of Chess and the Emperor of China
To appreciate the implications of this (or any) geometric trend, it is useful to recall the legend of the inventor of chess and his patron, the emperor of China. The emperor had so fallen in love with his new game that he offered the inventor a reward of anything he wanted in the kingdom.
“Just one grain of rice on the first square, Your Majesty”
“Just one grain of rice?”
“Yes, Your Majesty, just one grain of rice on the first square, and two grains of rice on the second square.”
“That’s it—one and two grains of rice?”
“Well, okay, and four grains on the third square, and so on.”
The emperor immediately granted the inventor’s seemingly humble request. One version of the story has the emperor going bankrupt because the doubling of grains of rice for each square ultimately equaled 18 million trillion grains of rice. At ten grains of rice per square inch, this requires rice fields covering twice the surface area of the Earth, oceans included.
The other version of the story has the inventor losing his head. It’s not yet clear which outcome we’re headed for.
But there is one thing we should note: It was fairly uneventful as the emperor and the inventor went through the first half of the chessboard. After thirty-two squares, the emperor had given the inventor about 4 billion grains of rice. That’s a reasonable quantity—about one large field’s worth—and the emperor did start to take notice.
But the emperor could still remain an emperor. And the inventor could still retain his head. It was as they headed into the second half of the chessboard that at least one of them got into trouble.
So where do we stand now? There have been about thirty-two doublings of speed and capacity since the first operating computers were built in the 1940s. Where we stand right now is that we have finished the first half of the chessboard. And, indeed, people are starting to take notice.
Now, as we head into the next century, we are heading into the second half of the chessboard. And this is where things start to get interesting.
OKAY, LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT, MY CONCEPTION AS A FERTILIZED EGG WAS LIKE THE UNIVERSE’S BIG BANG—UH, NO PUN INTENDED—THAT IS, THINGS STARTED OUT HAPPENING VERY FAST, THEN KIND OF SLOWED DOWN, AND NOW THEY’RE REAL SLOW?
That’s a reasonable way to put it, the time interval now between milestones is a lot longer than it was when you were an infant, let alone a fetus.
YOU MENTIONED THE UNIVERSE HAD THREE PARADIGM SHIFTS IN THE FIRST BILLIONTH OF A SECOND. WERE THINGS THAT FAST WHEN I GOT STARTED?
Not quite that fast. The Universe started as a singularity, a single point taking up no space and comprising, therefore, no chaos. So the first major event, which was the creation of the Universe, took no time at all. With the Universe still very small, events unfolded extremely quickly We don’t start out as a single point, but as a rather complex cell. It has order but there is a lot of random activity within a cell compared to a single point in space. So our first major event as an organism, which is the first mitosis of our fertilized egg, is measured in hours, not trillionths of a second. Things slow down from there.
BUT I FEEL LIKE TIME IS SPEEDING UP. THE YEARS JUST GO BY SO MUCH FASTER NOW THAN THEY DID WHEN I WAS A KID. DON’T YOU HAVE IT BACKWARD?
Yes, well, the subjective experience is the opposite of the objective reality
OF COURSE. WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?
Let me clarify what I mean. The objective reality is the reality of the outside observer observing the process. If we observe the development of an individual, salient events happen very quickly at first, but later on milestones are more spread out, so we say time is slowing down. The subjective experience, however, is the experience of the process itself, assuming, of course, that the process is conscious. Which in your case, it is. At least, I assume that’s the case.
THANK YOU.
Subjectively, our perception of time is affected by the spacing of milestones.
MILESTONES?
Yeah, like growing a body and a brain.
AND BEING BORN?
Sure, that’s a milestone. Then learning to sit up, walking, talking ...
OKAY.
We can consider each subjective unit of time to be equivalent to one milestone spacing. Since our milestones are spaced further apart as we grow older, a subjective unit of time will represent a longer span of time for an adult than for a child. Thus time feels like it is passing by more quickly as we grow older. That is, an interval of a few years as an adult may be perceived as comparable to a few months to a young child. Thus a long interval to an adult and a short interval to a child both represent the same subjective time in terms of the passage of salient events. Of course, long and short intervals also represent comparable fractions of their respective past lives.
SO DOES THAT EXPLAIN WHY TIME PASSES MORE QUICKLY WHEN I’M HAVING A GOOD TIME?
Well, it may be relevant to one phenomenon. If someone goes through an experience in which a lot of significant events occur, that experience may feel like a much longer period of time than a calmer period. Again, we measure subjective time in terms of salient experiences.
NOW IF I FIND TIME SPEEDING UP WHEN OBJECTIVELY IT IS SLOWING DOWN, THEN EVOLUTION WOULD SUBJECTIVELY FIND TIME SLOWING DOWN AS IT OBJECTIVELY SPEEDS UP, DO I
HAVE THAT STRAIGHT?
Yes, if evolution were conscious.
WELL, IS IT?
There’s no way to really tell, but evolution has its time spiral going in the opposite direction from entities we generally consider to be conscious, such as humans. In other words, evolution starts out slow and speeds up over time, whereas the development of a person starts out fast and then slows down. The Universe, however, does have its time spiral going in the same direction as us organisms, so it would make more sense to say that the Universe is conscious. And come to think of it, that does shed some light on what happened before the big bang.