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The Power of Ideas and the Law of Accelerating Returns
The Foundation of an Inventor
Driven by a childhood conviction that ideas can change the world, I began inventing at age five. My upbringing in a Unitarian church and exposure to the Tom Swift Jr. series instilled a "veneration for human creativity." I adopted a lifelong philosophy: no matter the challenge, an ingenious idea exists to solve it. My grandfather’s reverence for Leonardo da Vinci’s manuscripts further solidified this "religion" of human intellect.
The Evolution of Computing
In 1960, I discovered the computer’s power to model reality. I witnessed the rapid evolution of IBM machines, moving from the "7000" series to the first minicomputers. By 1968, I was using an IBM 360 Model 91—a machine with one megabyte of memory and a speed of one MIPS (million instructions per second)—costing $1,000 per hour to rent. It processed in seconds what took humans ten hours, appearing to "think" as it solved complex problems like matching students to colleges.
The Art of Timing and Prediction
Through the 1970s and 80s, I realized that successful invention requires "catching the wave" of technological trends. Most inventions fail due to poor timing rather than technical flaws. By modeling the exponential growth of electronics, processors, and memory, I began projecting future innovations for 2000 and beyond. This led to my "Law of Accelerating Returns," which explains why technology progresses at an exponential, rather than linear, rate.
The Coming Singularity
We are approaching an epoch where human and machine intelligence will blur—a "Singularity." This is predicated on our unique ability to access and revise our own "source code." While some doubt we can understand our own brains, we are already successfully modeling neural regions. Our intelligence sits just above the critical threshold necessary to scale our creative power infinitely.
Modern Magic
Technology is the "magic" of our age. Much like the incantations in Harry Potter, our formulas and algorithms can transform reality. Often, a massive breakthrough is the result of a small, brief change in a formula. Consider that the genetic difference between humans and chimpanzees is only a few hundred thousand bytes of information—yet that tiny delta enabled the creation of technology.
Ultimately, I am a "patternist." While the atoms in our bodies change every few weeks, the patterns of information remain. The story of the Singularity is the story of our destiny as a human-machine civilization.
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