| Charles Hottel 2008-01-12, 6:56 pm |
|
"tim Josling" <tejgcc_nospam@westnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:13ogudgkhf99e75@corp.supernews.com...
> On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 20:26:36 +0100, Sebastian Hanigk wrote:
>
>
> Any exponential growth must eventually taper off. The question is "when".
>
> Kurzweil makes a strong case that the exponential reduction in cost per
> calculation has been doing on for at least 130 years, across numerous
> technologies: from memory - humans, mechanical, electro-machanical,
> valves,
> transistors, ICs etc.
>
> I would also argue that if the human brain can calculate at X calculations
> per second, that suggests that it *is* possible to calculate at that rate.
> It does give hope that at least that level of performance is feasible.
>
<snip>
Besides learnig more about intelligence we may also learn more about
parallel processes and how they can communicate and be synchronized. As
Howard alluded to via "voting mechanism" the brain seem to have many
parallel processes and also seems to pre-compute and store patterns instead
of computing them from scratch all the time. The actual processing speed of
the neurons seems quite slow compared to computer circuits.
If Kurzweil is right super computers will soon (IIRC 5 to 10 years) reach
the processing speed equivalent toa single human and sometime in the 2020s a
desktop machine will have that same capability.
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