I recently asked the question whether anyone had quantified the percent of tasks that computers are superhuman at as a function of time—has anyone?
I’m not aware of any. Though I suppose it would depend a lot on how such a measure is operationalized (in terms of which tasks are included).
This is seriously cherry picked.
I quoted that line of Murphy’s as one that provides examples of key technologies that are close to hitting ultimate limits; I didn’t mean to say that they were representative of all technologies. :)
But it’s worth noting that more examples of technologies that cannot be improved that much further are provided in Gordon’s The Rise and Fall of American Growth as well as in Murphy’s article. Another example of a limit we’ve hit is the speed at which we communicate information around Earth, where we also hit the limit (the speed of light) many decades ago. That’s a pretty significant step that cannot be repeated, which of course isn’t so say that there isn’t still much room for progress in many other respects.
On the second point, I was referring to empirical trends we’re observing, as well as a theoretical ceiling within the hardware paradigm that has been dominant for the last several decades. It is quite thinkable — though hardly guaranteed — that other paradigms will eventually dominate the silicon paradigm as we know it, which gives us some reason to believe that we might see even faster growth in the future. But I don’t think it’s a strong reason in light of the recent empirical trends and the not that far-off distance to the ultimate limits to computation.
Thanks :)
I’m not aware of any. Though I suppose it would depend a lot on how such a measure is operationalized (in terms of which tasks are included).
I quoted that line of Murphy’s as one that provides examples of key technologies that are close to hitting ultimate limits; I didn’t mean to say that they were representative of all technologies. :)
But it’s worth noting that more examples of technologies that cannot be improved that much further are provided in Gordon’s The Rise and Fall of American Growth as well as in Murphy’s article. Another example of a limit we’ve hit is the speed at which we communicate information around Earth, where we also hit the limit (the speed of light) many decades ago. That’s a pretty significant step that cannot be repeated, which of course isn’t so say that there isn’t still much room for progress in many other respects.
On the second point, I was referring to empirical trends we’re observing, as well as a theoretical ceiling within the hardware paradigm that has been dominant for the last several decades. It is quite thinkable — though hardly guaranteed — that other paradigms will eventually dominate the silicon paradigm as we know it, which gives us some reason to believe that we might see even faster growth in the future. But I don’t think it’s a strong reason in light of the recent empirical trends and the not that far-off distance to the ultimate limits to computation.