Niknarf writes:
> Some pretty big breakthroughs are going to happen if
> Kurzweil-the-Prophet is borne out re 20,000 years of progress (at today's
> rate) being actualized between now and 2099.
According to Robin's paper at http://hanson.gmu.edu/longgrow.pdf,
we are already approaching an economic doubling time of 15 years,
enough to give us 2100 years of economic production (at current rates)
over the next century. If we consider economic output and progress to
be roughly synonymous, we only need to improve the "rate of progress"
to about 7% per year, getting to a doubling time of 9.5 years, in order
to have 20000 years of progress in the next century.
Robin's paper points out that by that time we would be long overdue for
another quantum leap in growth rates. IMO his paper can only properly
be called a mathematical model of the Singularity. But even without
such drastic changes, 20000 years of progress (by this definition) in
100 years is not hard to imagine, and requires only a modest increase
in current growth rates.
Hal
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