The Singularity is Near

[luke warm]

i can imagine that happening and i can imagine it being a good thing (with the potential to be misused)... and yes, there probably will be a difference in the way technology is accessed between the haves and the have nots... it will always be that way unless earth goes to a completely different economic model

[mike777]

i can imagine that happening and i can imagine it being a good thing (with the potential to be misused)... and yes, there probably will be a difference in the way technology is accessed between the haves and the have nots... it will always be that way unless earth goes to a completely different economic model

Yes, my main point being this is happening much faster than most realize. It will not take hundreds of years. Also this will affect bridge. It will not be overnight but the result of thousands of smaller advancements over the next few decades.

 

 

"The next stage of brainpower enhancement could be technological - through genetic engineering or brain prostheses. Because the gene variants pivotal to intellectual brilliance have yet to be discovered, boosting brainpower by altering genes may still be some way off, or even impossible. Prostheses are much closer, especially as the technology for wiring brains into computers is already being tested"

[Wackojack]

It appears that the increase in knowledge is following an exponential curve.  On an exponential curve, you can't ask how long it takes for knowledge to double in general because it depends on where you are on the curve.  You could view each separate field as being on its own exponential curve so medical knowledge may be doubling every 5 years and computer knowledge doubling every 4 years.  I don't know if there is such a thing as infinite knowledge...are there really an infinite number of principles to be understood...so perhaps we'll enter a phase at some point where increase in knowledge starts to slow down again.  When you get to this point then you're so close to knowing everything then it probably doesn't matter how fast you learn new things.

Acquiring knowledge requires experiece. Its quality and rate depends on the quality of the experience. Thus if I were to spend the rest of my life watching TV quiz games, I would gain very low grade knowledge and I would lose what little wisdom that I have. Ontoh if I were in a situation where my survival depended on my intelligence and intuition, the knowledge that I would gain would no doubt give me greater wisdom also. This applies to me and the human race. I think the jury is still out on whether or not the quality of human conciousness and therefore wisdom is collectively increasing. Certainly memes are spreading faster and faster through communications technology, some damaging and some beneficial. Lets hope that we survive the infection and evolve to be more resistant to the memes that encourage superstition, greed and hubris.

 

Oh! And when we know everything we know nothing.

[blackshoe]

i can imagine that happening and i can imagine it being a good thing (with the potential to be misused)... and yes, there probably will be a difference in the way technology is accessed between the haves and the have nots... it will always be that way unless earth goes to a completely different economic model

Yes, my main point being this is happening much faster than most realize. It will not take hundreds of years. Also this will affect bridge. It will not be overnight but the result of thousands of smaller advancements over the next few decades.

 

 

"The next stage of brainpower enhancement could be technological - through genetic engineering or brain prostheses. Because the gene variants pivotal to intellectual brilliance have yet to be discovered, boosting brainpower by altering genes may still be some way off, or even impossible. Prostheses are much closer, especially as the technology for wiring brains into computers is already being tested"

When I was an undergraduate, there were no electronic calculators. We used slide rules - and were permitted to take them into examinations. When electronic calculators first became ubiquitous, they were banned from examinations. I don't know, not have attended classes in the last 30 years or so, but I suspect that's no longer the case. I doubt a student would be allowed to take his laptop into an exam, but a calculator I suspect would be allowed. Programmable calculators may not be.

 

The point being that as technology advances, bridge, like other things in life, is going to have to adapt.