Our reason for placing the Singularity within the lifetimes of practi-
cally everyone now living who is not already retired, is the fact that
our supercomputers already have sufficient power to run a Singularity
level program (Tipler, 2007). We lack not the hardware, but the soft-
ware. Moore’s Law insures that today’s fastest supercomputer speed
will be standard laptop computer speed in roughly twenty years
(Tipler, 1994).
Really? I was unaware that Moore’s law was an actual physical law. Our state of the art has already hit the absolute physical limit of transistor design—we have single atom transistors in the lab. So, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll be taking the claim of, “Moore’s law ensures that today’s fastest supercomputer speed will be the standard laptop computer speed in 20 years with a bit of salt.”
Now, perhaps we’ll have some other technology that allows laptops twenty years hence to be as powerful as supercomputers today. But to just handwave that enormous engineering problem away by saying, “Moore’s law will take care of it,” is fuzzy thinking of worst sort.
Indeed. For example, I raised my eyebrows when I came across the 2007 claim we already have enough. But that was far from the most questionable claim in the paper, and I didn’t feel like reading Tipler 2007 to see what lurked within.
Really? I was unaware that Moore’s law was an actual physical law. Our state of the art has already hit the absolute physical limit of transistor design—we have single atom transistors in the lab. So, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll be taking the claim of, “Moore’s law ensures that today’s fastest supercomputer speed will be the standard laptop computer speed in 20 years with a bit of salt.”
Now, perhaps we’ll have some other technology that allows laptops twenty years hence to be as powerful as supercomputers today. But to just handwave that enormous engineering problem away by saying, “Moore’s law will take care of it,” is fuzzy thinking of worst sort.
True. But this one would not make the top 20 list of most problematic statements from the Tipler paper.
Indeed. For example, I raised my eyebrows when I came across the 2007 claim we already have enough. But that was far from the most questionable claim in the paper, and I didn’t feel like reading Tipler 2007 to see what lurked within.