Technology: Fundament Of Our Civilization's Wealth







Is democracy the reason for our current prosperity? I do not think so. Is democracy the reason for our current prosperity? I do not think so.





I think it’s the ever more sophisticated technology available on the market. And more specific microelectronics.





I furthermore deem capitalism as the backbone of industrialization and computerization. In this article I want to focus on a ca. 70 year civilization time scope not on the 1000 year time scope. Thus this article focuses on the price of computing.





The applications of microelectronics have lead to many products that we enjoy nowadays: flat-screens, smartphones, ATMs and the Internet. Self-Driving cars are also hitting mainstream adoption fairly soon in ca. 1-3 years.





Each decade had its share of new electronic tools that drove productivity, increased consumer choice or life quality. The 60s had communication satellites, the 70s had for example ATMs, the 80s home gaming consoles, the 90s the internet and the 00s the smartphone to name just a few.





Based on my interpretation of the predictions of Ray Kurzweil we might have to wait some time until another innovative tool, powered by microelectronic advancements comes to market.

Would Kurzweil or Intel tell you in their forecasts that the years from ca. 2017 onward will be a decade-long desert of microelectronic innovation? Would either Kurzweil or Intel receive any benefit from spelling out this innovation drought that looms?





Kurzweil would paint himself as a technology doomsayer, which would clash with his image as entrepreneur and inventor at Google in the field of artificial intelligence. Intel would basically have to say that one of their trademarks, Moore’s Law , is outdated and that no big innovations should be expected from them in the next 10 years.





If I apply the basic assumptions of Kurzweil, that technological innovations, also called paradigms, are improving the price performance of computation in an s-curve, then the current paradigm (integrated circuits) is currently nearing its end, while the next paradigm (probably quantum computing) is not yet ready to be used for productivity advancements.





Our current paradigm was marked by substantial increases of price performance of computing by a factor of ca. 100.000 between ca. 1973 and 2015.





End Of Moore's Law







Shrinking the size down any further is almost impossible say experts since quantum effects and other limiting natural laws take over to form an insurmountable wall of increasing costs and fuzzy computation.









That is a unscientific remark by me, but sometimes common sense can tells us things that the Intel investor relations brochure does not: New chips nowadays improve foremost in terms of energy consumption and rarely in terms of price of computation. That might be the case but anybody who compares the performance of a PC you could buy for $1000 in 2012 with 2016's PCs, recognizes that the price performance has not increased by a lot.That is a unscientific remark by me, but sometimes common sense can tells us things that the Intel investor relations brochure does not: New chips nowadays improve foremost in terms of energy consumption and rarely in terms of price of computation.





The next s-curve paradigm will again bring our civilization to a new level of productivity, prosperity and life quality. Kurzweil makes convincing arguments that this will happen. My estimate is that quantum computer technology will be the next paradigm, but it is not known when this will happen. As a critical and enthusiastic reader of Kurzweil, Wired and Intel publications I estimate that we might have 10 years to wait.





Conclusion



If my assessment of economy and technology are correct, these are the logical conclusions:

The major innovation engine (computing price performance) is taking a long break, though the minor innovation and productivity engines will continue to churn globally:

Software improvement

Software has time to mature since the underlying hardware changes slower

Company restructuring

CEO's will be under pressure to find news ways to optimize their company

Biotechnology

Genetics, Medicine, Crop Science

Privatization of state monopolies

More wellness services to keep you fit for productive work

More & improved education focused on job skills

Modernizing old infrastructure

Space exploration

Solar energy

Blaming China





Politicians and journalist are going to blame politicians, immigrants or China for the stagnation, since most do not acknowledge that technological innovation is largely responsible for increased wealth and economic growth.



Impact On Our Lives







Impact On Intel

Classical microprocessors are becoming a commodity. Intel needs to rebrand itself. From a leading innovation company to a lifestyle brand selling a commodity. The playbook for commodity marketing has been written by Coca-Cola, so expect similar marketing.



Impact On Kurzweil







Kurzweil will face a new generation of people doubting his singularity predictions during the time of stagnation. He is currently writing the second installment to his 2005 Book " The Singularity Is Near ". I predict that his new book "The Singularity Is Nearer" scheduled for 2017 will probably have a chapter specifically focusing on the public doubts emerging at the end of Moore's Law. Outlook

If you have been a budget shopper, it is now more sensible to invest into top of the line electronic devices. A fast premium smartphone or PC will still rank as a fast device in 5 years. Next year’s new device will probably offer only ca. 5% longer battery, 5% more pixels and 5% more speed. The main improvements are small yearly functionality increases through software updates.

If you zoom out mentally and temporally you see a new kind of transitional period. We are not just switching a paradigm as seen with jumping from transistor to integrated circuit. We are going to cease using miniaturization. Next time we use a new technique, probably quantum entanglement effects.







I estimate the end of the age of miniaturization will arrive within the next ca. 1-5 years. Let's take the oldest surviving mechanical clock that strikes the hour as a starting point of the miniaturization trend: the Salisbury Cathedral clock (build in 1386). We thus will witness the end of an age that lasted 630 years.













Kurzweil says that building the currently mostly two‐dimensional microchips into the third dimension will give us gains of 10x to 100x of price performance.