Re: Singularity: The Trendline Argument

Robin Hanson (hanson@econ.berkeley.edu)
Mon, 28 Sep 1998 10:18:56 -0700

>Max M Rasmussen writes:
>>My best shot so far is to say that growth is now limited by the rate at
>>which labor populations can grow, a limit that will be eliminated with
>>uploads or AIs.
>
>One thing is labour, but what i find more important than labor is the labors
>ability to learn. "To work smarter not harder" :-). If not, how come then
>that such a "small" group as the industrial world holds so much power and
>wealth compared to the rest of the world?

It is certainly true that smarter workers are now contributing more to growth that larger populations. But the question is what could create a big *change* in that growth rate, and it's not clear we know how to help people learn much faster. But there is a potential for enabling much faster labor population growth.

Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/ RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884 140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-8614