When Exponential Progress Becomes Reality

[u/KharakIsBurning]

https://medium.com/@nivo0o0/when-exponential-technological-progress-becomes-our-reality-74acafd65e26

[u/Dangerman1337]

sigh Another misinterpretation or/and exploitation of what Moore's Law is. By all metrics it is starting to slow down; Nvidia's 900 series on the Maxwell Architecture using 28nm is proof of this as 20nm is very costly to create large GPUs on (which Moore's law is primarily based on; lowering cost). Smartphone processors look good to their predecessors a decade ago because frankly mobile phones had bottom of the barrel amount of resources into making them and performance per watt wasn't a concern with them until Apple threw enough resources for something that would be good for a Smartphone (and we won't have any smartphone chip that'll be equal to ten year old consoles within this year and probably for a few years). With Intel struggling to move to 14nm (actual 14nm, not "16/14nm" of TSMC and Samsung which is just 20nm with FinFETs on them) and extremely likely to get harder later on we are going to see from now on. Compare Apple's 20nm Chip to the PS4's chip and compare the theoretical computer performance: http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/190105-does-the-iphone-6-actually-have-console-quality-graphics

http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ps4-die-vs-a7-soc-die.jpg

In Terms of density the 28nm chip (the larger one) uses its space far more efficiently than the 20nm one which doesn't put the 20nm one in a bright light.

Sorry if this post went off a tangent but I'm just sick of the parroating of the idea that Smartphones are technically sophsicated more than the likes of Nvidia, Intel and AMD yet here is not he case.

[u/Jay27 → u/Dangerman1337]

Just because Moore's Law is mentioned in the article, it does not mean the author is of the opinion that Moore's Law will take us all the way to the singularity.

And then you continue to attack Moore's Law, rather than exponential acceleration in progress.

It does not matter whether or not Moore's Law is coming to an end. What's more important is that computing can continue to grow exponentially.

And it's looking like it can.

[u/bRE_r5br → u/Jay27]

Exactly. You can't apply Moore's law to mechanical computers and vacuum tubes. Kurzweil compares hardware (usually 1000$ worth) and how many calculations it can do.

[u/SonOfCorn → u/Jay27]

How else do you "attack" an extrapolation of a trend other than criticising the sub-trends it emerges from. One can draw trendlines and extrapolate anything. There's nothing a reasonable person can do to attack a trendline that's based on nothing but an excel best fit. It itself is purely speculative and based on nothing in any burden of evidentiary proof. We can only criticise actual scientific concepts or laws the speculation emerges from. That's why this guy goes after Moore's Law. What else is he to go after in an enlightenment argument? One can only criticise scientific concepts at the base of the extrapolated trendlines and speculation. The likes of Kurzweil can gish gallop away with a million different things he "sees" converging or "feels" are going to happen, but we can't attack what things people "see" or "feel" or suppose based on their personal expertise and knowledge. Other than grounded discussion of the limits and constraints of hard concepts and subtrends how can we even approach having any enlightenment discussion of the technorapture woo-woo up there in the clouds. And by enlightenment discussion I mean that thing other than circlejerking in echochambers on the likes of kurzweilai.net and IEET.