Moore

In his 1965 paper, Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel, describes a trend that exists in the history of computing hardware, and it still holds true to this day. Moore’s law illustrates a pattern in the development of transistors, whether it is in performance¹, cost¹, or capacity¹. A contemporary example would probably be our everyday USB drives. Disregarding its evolution from the floppy disk, USBs’ storage spaces are almost doubling each year while still remaining in a relative price range. I remember this brief period in middle school where kids who had 980MB USBs thought they were the sh*t, but now we can purchase a SanDisk Cruzer 16GB USB 2.0 with just $32USD. From a consumer’s standpoint I certainly do hope that Moore’s law will hold in perpetuity, not only because of the decrease in retail cost but just imagine how technology can infiltrate our lives and make routine tasks more simple and convenient. According to Martin Hellman’s “Moore’s Law and Communications”² the same analog can be applied to other fields such as telecommunications. “Fifty years ago, the cost of a transcontinental phone call was on the order of $1 per minute, with approximately half the cost due to switching and half the cost due to long-haul communications. Since switching can be accomplished by computational means (e.g. packet switching), the $0.50 of switching cost can be accomplished today at an infinitesimal cost, approximately a billionth of a cent per minute, if it is done in the most cost-effective manner.” However, despite our deepest wishes, nothing really lasts forever. In 2005, Moore stated himself in an interview that “It can’t continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens.” There are also futurists that believe a similar framework of Moore’ law could be applied in the next evolving stage or the succeeding paradigm of what’s now the integrated-circuit technology – perhaps it might be artificially-intelligent robotics or a new type of technology altogether. As Ray Kurzweil³ points out in The Singularity Is Near, “there’s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. This means that the rate of technological progress, as we build upon prior progress, occurs at an ever-increasing pace… lead him to a conclusion involving artificial intelligence, human-machine integration, immortality, etc.” Such claim does pose several hazardous warnings – not only is being out of control a major concern if we become so technologically dependent, but worldwide employment may also cause civil unrest and turmoil. If routine jobs are all to be replaced by automated services, there would be a drastic decline in consumer demand and confidence, thus causing an economic crisis. Moore’s law is sometimes accredited as the opposite or violation of Murphy’s law, which states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, reflecting the positive nature of Moore’s law. However, whether this paradigm can survive the cruel countdown of such rapid and increasing exponential growth is really beyond us. But it is certain that we still have a decade or so to enjoy the comforts provided by technological advancements; it is truly hard to envision the future through such lens. Perhaps this trend will end only when “we saturate the Universe with the intelligence of our human-machine civilization.”³ Will our invasive nature become the societal flaw leading to doom or will human and machines co-exist without conflict?