Sean A. Hays (North America) - What is an Exponential Technology?
What, exactly, is an exponential technology? Ray Kurzweil-and nearly everyone else at Singularity University has taken to referring to an amorphous suite of technologies as "exponential technologies," when, in reality, we only have credible evidence of exponential growth in one field of technologies, ICT. So, what do they mean when they say exponential technologies, what should they mean, and how should the rest of us respond? You may find the connection somewhat distasteful, but the situation is similar to the rapid degradation of the word "terrorist." Shortly after September 11th, 2001-in truth somewhat before, but more noticeable afterward-it became politically and socially convenient to paint the world with the word "terrorist" in very, very broad strokes. The lesson we learned-or should have learned-from this is that when a word comes to mean everything, it, in fact, means nothing. The label "terrorist" has lost all credibility today.
The newly minted phrase "exponential technologies"-already being shortened on occasion to "exponentials"-has begun its young life at a distinct disadvantage. It barely had time to distinguish itself as referring to those technologies where credible evidence exists of exponential growth-computer memory and processing power, for example-before it was smeared across nanotechnology, biotechnology, and cognitive science, the other three horsemen of the end of the world as we know it. I first started to wonder at this new turn of phrase on a visit to Singularity University, which stretches the concept of a university in new and potentially positive ways. SU is a high-tech, hothouse university that tries to achieve the kind of indoctrination-and a commendable measure of practical training-that takes years in other universities in just ten weeks. In agriculture the need to rush and normalize production using greenhouses is obvious, but why is SU in such a hurry? Exponential technologies are coming, and there simply is no time to wait for the traditional innovation system, or so we are told.
Is nanotechnology an exponential technology? During the introductory session of SU's 2011 graduate class the answer from students and faculty alike was a resounding "yes." When people in Silicon Valley talk about "exponential growth"-and the meme is spreading beyond Silicon Valley-it would be reasonable to assume they are talking about Moore's Law, which dictates that the number of transistors that can fit on an integrated circuit doubles every 18 months to two years. It would be reasonable to assume, and it would be wrong. Ray Kurzweil, among others, has generalized Moore's Law to-and I'm paraphrasing Kurzweil here-all complex systems that increase in complexity over time, viz. the entirety of the known universe and everything in it. The evidence used to support this generalization is gaunt, but it has become accepted wisdom in ever widening circles. Thus, calling nanotechnology an "exponential technology" is perfectly reasonable to someone of this mindset, despite the fact that nanotechnology is not a technology. It is an incredibly huge network of scientific and technological research and development. It is materials science, electronic engineering, biology, physics, quantum mechanics, and many, many more. Nanotechnology suffers from the same illness as the word terrorist, it has been applied to everything and so it means nothing. If it means nothing, then by what measure do we determine it is growing exponentially? The same can be said of biotechnology, which the President's Council on Bioethics declined to even attempt to define, before it issued guidelines on how it should be governed.
We have approximately fifty years of excellent data to support the very limited claim made by Moore's Law. It is rock solid, and you can continue to take it to the bank. In fact, developments in nanotechnology and biotechnology will enable the exponential growth of information technology to continue. In return, information technology will accelerate the growth of its comrades in arms. Evidence of convergence-increasing overlap and bleed-through between disciplines, sometimes being needed before one or the other can progress-is abundant. Evidence of exponential growth in nanotechnology or biotechnology is virtually non-existent. In the end, the message I would have you take away from all of this is, there is good reason to have hope, but don't believe the hype.
Sean A. Hays is a post-doctoral fellow with the consortium for science, policy, and outcomes and the center for nanotechnology in society, both at ASU
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