This is 1956 photo of an IBM hard drive.
The drive weighed about a ton and could store about 5 megabytes of data. By comparison it would take 1000 of these monsters to store what a thumb drive can store today.
An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive linear” view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate).
An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive linear” view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate).
The “returns,” such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There’s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.
The implications include the merger of biological and non biological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.
And advertising fits into this picture, how?
With thanks to Business Insider for the photo and Ray Kurzweil's Accelerating Intelligence.
Posts
1 comment:
Back in 1985, my company had a small IBM mainframe that was used concurrently by about 10 people. The hard drive was half the size of the one in your picture and held 500MB. Progress from 1956! The processor had 1MB of RAM. Despite all that, it was much more responsive than most web based applications today.
Post a Comment