The Expotential Progress of the World

"I bring it up because I've been hearing more references lately to Kurzweil's Law, otherwise known as the Law of Accelerating Returns. Coined by futurist Ray Kurzweil, the theory states that building on past accomplishments, the pace of technological change doubles every decade--leading to a Moore's Law vision of progress.

"Early stages of technology--the wheel, fire, stone tools--took tens of thousands of years to evolve and be widely deployed. A thousand years ago, a paradigm shift such as the printing press took on the order of a century to be widely deployed. Today, major paradigm shifts, such as cell phones and the World Wide Web, were widely adopted in only a few years time," Kurzweil wrote in the original essay outlining the theory.

"In the 19th century, we saw more technological change than in the nine centuries preceding it. Then in the first twenty years of the 20th century, we saw more advancement than in all of the 19th century," he added.

Venture capitalists love this kind of thinking, because it implies that something huge is just about to emerge."

- Micheal Kanellos (News.com - CNET)

Well, another article that validates my observation on the progress of the world today. What this implies is that for many of us, those futuristic gadgets will just become a reality in the near future. Looking at this article about next-generation displays, I can't help but link it to those seen in the movie "Minority Report". Can we say that the future is already here?

More importantly, underlying this thrend is the expotential growth that results when we humans work collaboratively, building on other's past achievements, and not reinventing the wheel. I have eloborated on this point in this blog.