Talk:Accelerating change

Edit made
I deleted a parenthetical statement in the criticism that seemed to imply that non-human inventors e.g.george macri are an inevitability without citing any evidence confirming such a statement. I feel the article is made more objective by it's removal.

Criticisms
No discussion? i thought most articles had a discussion.

Maybe in critisism, there should also be this is just straight line drawing in logirithmic scaled graphs rather then linear ones.

Also some of the pictures also show the progress of evolution, while that may be critised aswell. Why didn't the dinosaurs get intelligent already?

This article is heavily balanced towards the existence of accelerating change yet according to some authoritative sources there is no evidence of this even existing, a fact that isn't even mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Singularity Preparation (talk • contribs) 20:36, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Kurzweil's picture of Evolution vs. Stephen J. Gould
I assume that y'all have accurately portrayed Ray's picture of evolution. It seems overly simplistic compared to a real biologist like Stephen J. Gould.

217.40.67.106 14:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC) I don't think it necessary follows that you can show a linear increase in AI intelligence meaning an inevitable singularity. Using the same argument you could show the history of the automobile as proof that the speed of light is not immutable. Luke C 217.40.67.106 14:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

One note on LAR
This article describes LAR as exponential growth, but LAR is actually a case of hyperexponential growth; the rate of increase (in proportional terms) actually gets exponentially faster and the differential equation (if the damn thing doesn't break down) is such that this numerically defined "progress" goes off to infinity in finite time. While this probably wouldn't play out as such in practice, this is the essence of technological singularity. Czar Dragon 04:34, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Article move
I propose that this article's topic should be changed from the Law of Accelerating Returns to the more general school of thought concerning accelerating change, (super-)exponential growth in technology, etc. There is as of yet no official Wikipedia article on the topic, but much of the content in the present article really concerns accelerating change in general, not just Kurzweil's particular take on it. If nobody voices any objections here within the next few days, I intend to change the article's name to "Accelerating change" and reword the introduction appropriately. -- Schaefer (Talk) 04:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * In science, the word "Law" essentially means "theory". The article should make clear that this is a theory - albeit a widely accepted one - and not a simple observable phenomenon. --RichardVeryard (talk) 09:48, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

The meaning of the Law of Accelerating Returns
Hey guys. I'd like to understand this phrase to complement the translation of the article in foreign language, but I'm not sure the meaning of it accurately since I'm not good command of English. It simply means a sequel to the Low of Accelerating, is it? Does it contain more meanings?--Uiweo 15:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not meant that way. "Returns" is a noun, not a verb. That is, it's a law about returns where the returns are accelerating, not a law about accelerating where the law is returning. It's intended as a reference to the much more famous law of diminishing returns. -- Schaefer (talk) 05:13, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the information. That's make sense.--Uiweo 09:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Kurtzweil's diagrams are worthless
The charts on this page, particularly Image:ParadigmShiftsFrr15Events.jpg, are extremely misleading and have little actual informational content. The graph points sharply to a technological singularity as right around the corner ("next year", actually) ; but in fact, this is a mathematical necessity of how the graph was constructed.

Take a look at a few of the individual series on the chart. Neither Encyclopedia Britannica, Davis Nelson, or Goran Burenholt list any events within the last 10^4 years. Yet all three of these plots seem to indicate exactly the same trend that Kurtzweil aims to illustrate. How can this be? How can Nelson's list of paradigm shifts &mdash; which ends with our divergence to homo sapiens 200,000 years ago &mdash; possibly be used to suggest that there will probably be even one more shift (under Nelson's criteria, whatever they may have been) within the next 10, 100, or even 1000 years?

In fact, regardless of the sequence of key events chosen, and regardless of when the graphic is made, the log plot must point straight towards next year the present. The plot mathematically has to be a sharp diagonal on the right side: anything with "time to next event" greater than "time before present" would require the list to contain future events. And our imprecise historical knowledge puts a limit on how fuzzy the left side can be. For example, the wheel was invented "in the 4th millennium BC", according to that article. That's about 6000 years ago. If you consider the invention of the wheel to be a key event, then what's the shortest possible time to next event? Keeping the same number of significant figures, the soonest next event would be 5000 years ago. The time to next event for the wheel (6*10^3 years ago) would be, at minimum, 10^3 years, less than one tick below the axis of symmetry.

So it's not a matter of selecting a reasonable list of key events &mdash; there's simply no realistic way that one could create a sequence (even an unreasonable one!) that looks different from this plot.

--Dzhim (talk) 02:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Additionally, embedding Kurtzweil's graphics into every section of the article (including the "criticisms" section&mdash;what?) raises POV concerns... --Dzhim (talk) 03:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I understand your point, but I think you make it too strongly. Consider the points that a fundamentalist young-earth Christian would place on such a graph. The last point would be the crucifixion of Jesus, and all the points would fall between 6000 and 2000 years before present. The pattern would not have the characteristic diagonal that you insist it must have. Of course this is an extreme case, but it is a valid counterexample. Nevertheless, I agree with the overall thrust of your remarks: the chart is misleading, and the article would be improved by its absence. —Aetheling (talk) 14:52, 4 June 2008 (UTC).
 * Thanks, Aetheling, you're correct in pointing out one possible sequence that would look different when plotted in this fashion. However, even a young-earth timeline would have fit reasonably well among Kurtzweil's others for the first few centuries AD (had Kurtzweil and logarithms been around then).  The difference relies partly on the fact that the sequence covers a range of time that is narrow relative to how much has passed since.  This is due to the graphing methodology, which (by rather circular logic) implies the present as an additional event in each sequence: for each sequence, the final point has equal X and Y values, meaning "time to next event" equals "time before present." --Dzhim (talk) 01:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The very idea that singularity will be reached by 2045 is misled by the accelerating change involving everything, therefore Kurzweil's Argument is pretty misleading since he doesn't include himself in the change. Ah, the irony... (anonymous user)

Switching energy
It would nice to mention/link in how the switching energy for a single transistor has decreased over time. Couldn't find the appropriate page on Wikipedia. Does it exist?--Michael C. Price talk 20:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Diagrams
Unless there's any objection, I'm going to remove the diagrams currently in the article. All are OR violations (who picked out the selected inventions, etc., and who says there're notable?), with the possible exception of the patents given one, which still needs a source and more information, since it's obviously been smoothed. Thegreenj 06:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * All diagrams are from The Singularity is Near, so not OR; but as said above, there's no need for so many in the article, and might there be copyright problems? N (t/c) 01:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Nickptar, the diagrams are permitted. Kurtzweil's graphics are almost the only graphics the page had, why was it removed so suddenly without a vote? The sources cited in the images are well established and referenced. If there is criticism of them, thats great: lets include it. An Accelerating Change entry without Ray's graphs is like talking about Bob Geldof without mentioning the F word. Few would argue the graphs are not useful illustrations. I'm reverting them back. Don't mess around without a vote. - VirianFlux --80.45.66.80 (talk) 01:22, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a democracy. N (t/c) 01:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have removed the most egregiously stupid of the illustrations from the article (that is, any with "time to next event" as an axis). Aside from potential POV/balance and copyright concerns, I have no problem with the ones that remain.  If necessary, I will happily argue that the graphs I removed are not useful illustrations. -- Dzhim (talk) 00:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Updated graphs (with data current to 2008) are available for download at http://www.kurzweilai.net/pps/tedu09 I do not know how they are licensed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roc1 (talk • contribs) 16:21, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It needs to be noted...
That every single graph on this page was made by Raymond Kurzweil.- Mrsnuggless —Preceding undated comment added 20:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC).
 * Please read over WP:No original research. It is cautioning against Wikipedia editors synthesizing original insights. It is not against writing about others who conduct research.
 * The images all state that they were created by Kurzweil. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Computing Power
The best parallel computers are already made of DNA, but they need a few breakthroughs such as nanopore sequencing before they can be brought into the home. The other, arguably more famous advance in computing power comes from quantum computing. Both are set to be actionable in our lifetimes. What I'm getting at is that we should set up sections for technologies (from computing, communications, energy, to transportation and so on) and highlight possible new advancements as they come along. Wiki is (after all) an ever changing encyclopedia. 99.236.221.124 (talk) 14:41, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Vernor Vinge's accelerating change
The exponential acceleration of technological progress culminating in a technological singularity is associated with the writings of Vernor Vinge, who not only wrote for an academic audience (crediting earlier related thoughts by Stanislaw Ulam and I. J. Good ), but also popularized the concept in SF novels such as Marooned in Realtime (1986) and A Fire Upon the Deep (1992). The former is set in a world of rapidly accelerating change leading to the emergence of more and more sophisticated technologies separated by shorter and shorter time intervals, until a point beyond human comprehension is reached. The latter starts with an imaginative description of the evolution of a superintelligence passing through exponentially accelerating developmental stages ending in a transcendent, almost omnipotent power unfathomable by mere humans.

Quiname (talk) 19:46, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

space travel?
I'm sure there must be some source out there talking about how space travel completely bucked the trend of accelerating change. 100 years ago, we could barely fly on earth, 50 years ago we had satellites in space, 40 years ago we were on the moon and we haven't done anything more impressive than that since. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heresimach (talk • contribs) 18:20, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

It has! The novel was written in 1953! THE LIGHTS IN THE SKY ARE STARS by (the unjustly forgotten great) science fiction author Fredric Brown. The time scales for almost the same development of manned space flight is only 4 years off. But Brown does have manned space flight or, at least, manned flight beyond the Earth stopped in almost the same time frame. He is optimistic and has it started up again around the year 2000, alas we have overshot that by a lot and it seems it may take at least 10 more years if not 20 before it restarts , and then it may be China who does it. aajacksoniv (talk) 16:10, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Support removal
"While many scholars have suggested accelerating change, the popularity of this theory in modern times is closely associated with various advocates of the technological singularity, including Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil, among others." was snipped, and restored without comment.

I support this removal as it appears to be personal opinion, and is unsourced. I also do not see how it is encyclopedic. It seems clear to me that the accelerating pace of change, from the 1800s, has been a key facet of at least US society. Unless there is an argument or a source, I expect to remove this promptly.Shajure (talk) 16:45, 3 May 2016 (UTC) :Going to add a CN tag and let it lie for a bit before applying the editorial hatchet.Shajure (talk) 19:02, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually..this is unsourced material in the lead. Dropping it now.Shajure (talk) 03:39, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

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Alvin Toffler and Future Shock
I stumbled across this page through a link from James Burke, and was very surprised to see that there is no mention at all of Alvin Toffler and his book Future Shock. Toffler's book was so influential that one could almost claim that he invented the idea of accelerating change as discussed in this article, so to not have him at least mentioned in it is... strange. Joseph Petek (talk) 02:47, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Well then why haven't you edited the article yet? (If you have sources) There's a link to Future Shock in the see alsos though. --Fixuture (talk) 19:01, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

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Moore's Law 5th Paradigm Image Doesn't Seem to Make Sense
In the image showing the computational speed of various media, it is confusing because it has a picture of a punch card, which doesn't calculate, that's done by relays, transistors, tubes, or whatever electronic switching medium the computer uses.

This is more confusing as relays, vacuum tubes, and transistors are shown along side punch cards.

So, I'm not really sure how this is meant to be interpreted. VoidHalo (talk) 21:09, 22 May 2024 (UTC)