Reason
Posted: 2007-11-13 20:08:51 [1]

Below, two cool graphs from Ray "The Singularity is Near [2]" Kurzweil's presentation at Harvard Business School's Cyberposium [3] this weekend. Kurzweil whipped up these charts to show how awesomely fast cultural, biological, and technological progress can accumulate.

The upshot is that ideas which seem far-fetched--like the possibility of extending human life indefinitely [4], cybernetic implants [5], and nanobots [6] in our bloodstreams, all of which Kurzweil has predicted--could be upon us sooner than you think, because change is accelerating at such a mind-blowing pace that our linearly-predisposed brains have trouble comprehending it.

It's important to note the the chart is doubly logarithmic--moving along the x or y axis moves you by powers of 10. If the graphs were on a linear scale, they would look like a nearly flat line, followed by an exponential explosion of progress.

Lest you accuse the man of cherry-picking biological and cultural landmarks to fit his line, Kurzweil calls in some outside experts:

Download the whole presentation here [7].

Read more about good times with Ray Kurzweil here [8] and here [9], and--most recently--here [10].

Check out reason's interview [11] with Singularity speculator Vernor Vinge.