Re: Hardware Progress: $272/GFlop/s

From: Dani Eder (danielravennest@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Aug 26 2002 - 19:49:48 MDT


--- jg nlb <comptelist@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I enjoy very much reading this periodic message.
>
> One suggestion : would it be possible to add some
> other variables. I mean
> it's already a neat thing to compute the Gflop
> price. But it's not
> everything. Example of thing i'd like to know : the
> speed of the genome
> deciphering, when the telomerase can be treated not
> to shorten,
> gain on life expectancy, etc... (kind of stuff
> people over forty might start
> to worry about ...).
>
> Jean Nguyen.
>

I track $/Gflop because it directly relates to the
primary subject of this list - the development of
computer-based AI as a path to the Singularity.

The other variable I am starting to track -
manufacturing productivity - relates to another path
to the Singualrity. Labor input per unit of
factory production seems to be on a near-linear
downward trend. At the projected zero point (~2025
AD)
you would have fully automated factories capable
of producing anything with no human labor, including
copies of themselves.

Coupled with the trend in computer power, it leads
to a vastly different world than the one we live in
now.

Variables like speed of genome sequencing are a
consequence of computers and automated equipment,
not an independant variable. Progress in biology
will not change the world in the next 25 years
as much as the other variables listed above. Even
if a miracle drug were discovered today that stopped
aging, in 25 years the population of the planet won't
be much different than today - most people would
still die from other causes like disease and
accidents.

Daniel

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