Generational Dynamics World View

[pbrower2a]

(10-28-2019, 10:16 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: While I agree with the "fast enough computer" theory, I don't necessarily agree with the idea that we'll get computers fast enough and efficient enough.

Here's the issue:  for decades, Moore's law was driven by reduction in processor size.  Unfortunately, within the past decade, that reduction reached a physical limit as circuits on the chips shrank to the point that inductance effects between adjacent "wires" became limiting.

At this point, Moore's law is being driven by parallelism instead of more powerful processors:  having larger numbers of the same old processors running in parallel.  That can still result in ever more powerful computers - but they will also be ever larger and consume ever more energy.  That limits their usefulness in certain applications, in particular mobile applications.

In 2050, the best artists may well be computers which fill buildings.  We may still be traveling around town in Uber and Lyft vehicles driven by human beings, however.

We have another constraint: human capacity to deal with the capacity of our machines. Just consider automobiles: the Model-T Ford was an easy machine to maintain and fix. Sure, it was an awful car by contemporary standards; it could never cope with the freeways of Dallas and it would be grossly unsafe. Henry Ford wanted it easy to repair because many people still farmers and ranchers were far away from a repair shop. Today's cars have collapsible steering columns which are less likely to kill a driver than the rigid ones that impaled him and have front sections designed to give way and absorb the shock of a collision. Cars have catalytic converters to reduce emissions of carbon monoxide (and as a side effect preclude the use of dangerous tetraethyl lead). That is before we even discuss the air conditioner which allows us to drive in 40C  heat without getting heatstroke and allows us to drive I-80 from Nebraska to Ohio without going mad.

But that is nothing in contrast to computing. Data can simply overwhelm us.

I am going to say this about creative people: many people in mindless, repetitive jobs dream of being creative people even if the mindless, repetitive job pays well enough to offer a middle-income way of life. Creative people rarely dream of becoming assembly-line workers or checker-cashiers. Writers, editors, composers, musicians, actors, and artists will protect their privileged roles of doing work that they love from computers taking over. OK, there will be CGI that we will not escape, but all in all even the CGI requires artists to do the storyboards and edit the results. It might be technically possible to get simulations of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood into the same Western movie (they never appeared in the same movie!) -- but it will not be credible.