When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. Lists prepared by, among others, Carl Sagan, Paul D. Boyer, Encyclopædia Britannica, American Museum of Natural History and University of Arizona, compiled by Ray Kurzweil.

In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is an increase in the rate of technological (and sometimes social and cultural) progress throughout history, which some claim suggests faster and more profound change in the future. While many have suggested accelerating change, its popularity in modern times is closely associated with the ideas and writings of Raymond Kurzweil. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1189x924, 162 KB) Courtesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1189x924, 162 KB) Courtesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. ... Logarithms to various bases: is to base e, is to base , and is to base . ... Paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science. ... History is often used as a generic term for information about the past, such as in geologic history of the Earth. When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of human societies. ... In mathematics, exponential growth (or geometric growth) occurs when the growth rate of a function is always proportional to the functions current size. ... Insert non-formatted text here Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer and astrobiologist and a highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics, and other natural sciences. ... Paul Delos Boyer (born July 31, 1918) is an American biochemist. ... The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The University of Arizona (UA or U of A) is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. ... Dr. Raymond Kurzweil (born February 12, 1948) is a pioneer in the fields of optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic musical keyboards. ... Future studies reflects on how today’s changes (or the lack thereof) become tomorrow’s reality. ... The wheel was invented circa 4000 BC, and has become one of the worlds most famous, and most useful technologies. ... Raymond Kurzweil (pronounced: ) (born February 12, 1948) is a pioneer in the fields of optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. ...

Early theories

In 1958, Stanisław Ulam wrote in reference to a conversation with John von Neumann: Jan. ... StanisÅ‚aw Ulam in the 1950s. ... For other persons named John Neumann, see John Neumann (disambiguation). ...

In his book "Mindsteps to the Cosmos" (HarperCollins, August 1983), Gerald S. Hawkins elucidated his notion of 'mindsteps', dramatic and irreversible changes to paradigms or world views. He identified five distinct mindsteps in human history, and the technology that accompanied these "new world views": the invention of imagery, writing, mathematics, printing, the telescope, rocket, computer, radio, TV... "Each one takes the collective mind closer to reality, one stage further along in its understanding of the relation of humans to the cosmos." He noted: "The waiting period between the mindsteps is getting shorter. One can't help noticing the acceleration." Hawkins' empirical 'mindstep equation' quantified this, and gave dates for future mindsteps. The date of next mindstep (5; the series begins at 0) is given as 2021, with two more successively closer mindsteps, until the limit of the series in 2053. His speculations ventured beyond the technological: Gerald Stanley Hawkins (1928–2003) was an astronomer and author most famous for his work in the field of archaeoastronomy. ...

Mass use of inventions: Years until use by a quarter of US population

Since the late 1970s, others like Alvin Toffler (author of Future Shock), Daniel Bell and John Naisbitt have approached theories of postindustrial societies. They argue the industrial era is coming to an end, and services and information are supplanting industry and goods. Some more extreme visions of the postindustrial society, especially in fiction, envision the elimination of economic scarcity. Meme, (rhymes with cream and comes from Greek root with the meaning of memory and its derivative mimeme), is the term given to a unit of information that replicates from brains and inanimate stores of information, such as books and computers, to other brains or stores of information. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1201x958, 109 KB) Coutesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1201x958, 109 KB) Coutesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. ... Alvin Toffler Alvin Toffler (born October 3, 1928) is an American writer and futurist, known for his works discussing the digital revolution, communications revolution, corporate revolution and technological singularity. ... Future Shock is a controversial book written by the sociologist and futurologist Alvin Toffler in 1970. ... Daniel Bell Daniel Bell (born 10 May 1919) is a sociologist and professor emeritus at Harvard University. ... John Naisbitt (born Jan. ... A post-industrial society is a society in which an economic transition has occurred from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy, a diffusion of national and global capital, and mass privatization. ... In sociology, industrial society refers to a society with a modern societal structure. ... This article is about a term used in economics. ... A good in economics is any physical object (natural or man-made) or service that, upon consumption, increases utility, and therefore can be sold at a price in a market. ... For other uses, see Fiction (disambiguation). ... Economic Scarcity is a condition in which the total demand for land, labor, capital, goods and services exceeds that which is available for distribution through the economic system. ...

Many sociologists and anthropologists have created social theories dealing with social and cultural evolution. Some, like Lewis H. Morgan, Leslie White, and Gerhard Lenski, declare technological progress to be the primary factor driving the development of human civilization. Sociology (from Latin: socius, companion; and the suffix -ology, the study of, from Greek λόγος, lógos, knowledge [1]) is the systematic and scientific study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social action, and culture[2]. Areas studied in sociology can range from the analysis of brief contacts between anonymous... Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, human being; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the study of humanity. ... Social theory refers to the use of abstract and often complex theoretical frameworks to explain and analyze social patterns and large-scale social structures. ... Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was an American ethnologist, anthropologist and writer. ... Leslie Alvin White ([19 January [1900]], Salida Colorado -- 31 March 1975) was an anthropologist known for his advocacy of theories of cultural evolution and his role in creating the department of anthropology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. ... Gerhard Emmanuel Lenski (born August 13, 1924) is an American sociologist known for contributions to the sociology of religion, social inequality, and ecological-evolutionary social theory (which is related to cultural evolution). ...

Morgan's concept of three major stages of social evolution (savagery, barbarism, and civilization) can be divided by technological milestones, like fire, the bow, and pottery in the savage era, domestication of animals, agriculture, and metalworking in the barbarian era and the alphabet and writing in the civilization era. Savage has various meanings. ... Barbarism may refer to: Barbarism (derived from barbarian), the condition to which a society or civilization may be reduced after a societal collapse, relative to an earlier period of cultural or technological advancement; the term may also be used pejoratively to describe another society or civilization which is deemed inferior... Central New York City. ... For other uses, see Fire (disambiguation). ... This article is about the projectile weapon bow. ... Unfired green ware pottery on a traditional drying rack at Conner Prairie living history museum. ... Domesticated animals, plants, and other organisms are those whose collective behavior, life cycle, or physiology has been altered as a result of their breeding and living conditions being under human control for multiple generations. ... Turned chess pieces Metalworking is the craft and practice of working with metals to create structures or machine parts. ... ABCs redirects here, for the Alien Big Cats, see British big cats. ... Write redirects here. ...

Instead of specific inventions, White decided that the measure by which to judge the evolution of culture was energy. For White, "the primary function of culture" is to "harness and control energy." White differentiates between five stages of human development: In the first, people use energy of their own muscles. In the second, they use energy of domesticated animals. In the third, they use the energy of plants (agricultural revolution). In the fourth, they learn to use the energy of natural resources: coal, oil, gas. In the fifth, they harness nuclear energy. Craig Brownell suggests that there could be a sixth stage in this series: the utilisation of zero-point vacuum quantum fluctuation energy, for propulsion if not actual power generation. There is much debate over whether Casimir effects can be exploited, however. Domesticated animals, plants, and other organisms are those whose collective behavior, life cycle, or physiology has been altered as a result of their breeding and living conditions being under human control for multiple generations. ... In the Earths history there have been a number of agricultural revolutions. ... This article concerns the energy stored in the nuclei of atoms; for the use of nuclear fission as a power source, see Nuclear power. ... ZERO.POINT is a science fiction television series in development that revolves around Teresa Harwell, a quantum physicist searching for zero-point energy and the drifter she believes has the keys to understanding it. ... In physics, the Casimir effect is a physical force exerted between separate objects, which is due to neither charge, gravity, nor the exchange of particles, but instead is due to resonance of all-pervasive energy fields in the intervening space between the objects. ...

US Patents granted, 1870–2005

White introduced a formula P=ET, where E is a measure of energy consumed, and T is the measure of efficiency of technical factors utilizing the energy. In his own words, "culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased." The Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev extrapolated this theory to create the Kardashev scale, which categorizes the energy use of advanced civilizations. A Dyson sphere is Type II on this scale, and humanity is currently at about 0.72. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1191x953, 99 KB) Coutesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1191x953, 99 KB) Coutesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. ... For other uses, see Patent (disambiguation). ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Kardashev scale projections ranging from 1900 to 2100. ... A cut-away diagram of an idealized Dyson shell—a variant on Dysons original concept—1 AU in radius. ...

Lenski takes a more modern approach and focuses on information. The more information and knowledge (especially allowing the shaping of natural environment) a given society has, the more advanced it is. He identifies four stages of human development, based on advances in the history of communication. In the first stage, information is passed by genes. In the second, when humans gain intelligence, they can learn and pass information by experience. In the third, the humans start using signs and develop logic. In the fourth, they can create symbols, develop language and writing. Advancements in the technology of communication translates into advancements in the economic system and political system, distribution of goods, social inequality and other spheres of social life. He also differentiates societies based on their level of technology, communication and economy: (1) hunters and gatherers, (2) simple agricultural, (3) advanced agricultural, (4) industrial (5) special (like fishing societies). The ASCII codes for the word Wikipedia represented in binary, the numeral system most commonly used for encoding computer information. ... The history of communication dates back to the earliest signs of life. ... For other uses, see Gene (disambiguation). ... Intelligence is the mental capacity to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn. ... Learned redirects here. ... Look up signs in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason, or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ... Write redirects here. ... An economic system is a particular set of social institutions which deals with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in a particular society. ... A political system is a system of politics and government. ... Social inequality refers to disparities in the distribution of material wealth in a society. ...

Kurzweil and The Law of Accelerating Returns

Kurzweil in his 2001 essay The Law of Accelerating Returns extends Moore's law to describe an exponential growth of technological progress. Moore's law describes an exponential growth pattern in the complexity of integrated semiconductor circuits. Kurzweil extends this to include technologies from far before the integrated circuit to future forms of technology. Whenever a technology approaches some kind of a barrier, according to Kurzweil, a new technology will be invented to allow us to cross that barrier. He cites numerous past examples of this to substantiate his assertions. He predicts that such paradigm shifts have and will continue to become increasingly common, leading to "technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history." He believes the Law of Accelerating Returns implies that a technological singularity will occur before the end of the 21st century, in 2045. Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... Gordon Moores original graph from 1965 Growth of transistor counts for Intel processors (dots) and Moores Law (upper line=18 months; lower line=24 months) For the observation regarding information retrieval, see Mooers Law. ... In mathematics, exponential growth (or geometric growth) occurs when the growth rate of a function is always proportional to the functions current size. ... By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a mastery of technology sufficient to leave the surface of the Earth for the first time and explore space. ... Paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science. ... When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. ... 20XX redirects here. ...

The essay begins:

Moore's Law expanded to other technologies

Kurzweil's Law has in many ways altered public perception of Moore's. It is a common (but mistaken) belief that Moore's law makes predictions regarding all forms of technology, when really it only concerns semiconductor circuits. Many futurists still use the term "Moore's Law" to describe ideas like those put forth by Kurzweil. In futurology, a technological singularity is a predicted point in the development of a civilization at which technological progress accelerates beyond the ability of present-day humans to fully comprehend or predict. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1020x1026, 134 KB) Coutesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1020x1026, 134 KB) Coutesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. ... When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. ... Gordon Moores original graph from 1965 Growth of transistor counts for Intel processors (dots) and Moores Law (upper line=18 months; lower line=24 months) For the observation regarding information retrieval, see Mooers Law. ...

According to Kurzweil, since the beginning of evolution, more complex life forms have been evolving exponentially faster, with shorter and shorter intervals between the emergence of radically new life forms, such as human beings, who have the capacity to engineer (intentionally to design with efficiency) a new trait which replaces relatively blind evolutionary mechanisms of selection for efficiency. By extension, the rate of technical progress amongst humans has also been exponentially increasing, as we discover more effective ways to do things, we also discover more effective ways to learn, i.e. language, numbers, written language, philosophy, scientific method, instruments of observation, tallying devices, mechanical calculators, computers, each of these a major advance in our ability to account for information occurring increasingly close together. Already within the past sixty years, life in the industrialized world has changed almost beyond recognition except for living memories from the first half of the 20th century. This pattern will culminate in unimaginable technological progress in the 21st century, leading to a singularity. Kurzweil elaborates on his views in his books The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity Is Near. This article is about evolution in biology. ... For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ... Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. ... 20XX redirects here. ... Time periods between key events in human history shrink expotentially in a chart by Kurzweil depicting his Law of Accelerating Returns, explained in the book. ... Cover of the book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Viking Penguin, ISBN 0-670-03384-7) is a 2005 update of Raymond Kurzweils 1999 book, The Age of Spiritual Machines and his 1987 book The Age of Intelligent Machines. ...

Criticisms

A logarithmic timeline showing an exponentially accelerating trend towards increasing frequency of major events, as chosen by Kurzweil, in human and natural history. Some critics of Kurzweil's theory dispute the choice of such specific events.

Some claim the exponential growth of technological progress may become linear or inflected or may begin to flatten into a limited-growth curve. In this model, instead of an overall acceleration of progress, technological advance jumps forward whenever there is a human "buy in" and stalls whenever there is no benefit large enough to profit the technologists. As a result, the sequence of changes never gets steep enough to become a singularity. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1167x909, 160 KB) Coutesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1167x909, 160 KB) Coutesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. ... A logarithmic timeline, based on logarithmic scale, was developed by Heinz von Foerster, the philosopher and physicist. ... In mathematics, exponential growth (or geometric growth) occurs when the growth rate of a function is always proportional to the functions current size. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

Examples of large human "buy-ins" into technology include the computer revolution, as well as massive government projects like the Manhattan Project and the Human Genome Project. The foundation organizing the Methuselah Mouse Prize believes aging research could be the subject of such a massive project if substantial progress is made in slowing or reversing cellular aging in mice. This article presents a detailed timeline of events in the history of computing. ... This article is about the World War II nuclear project. ... The Human Genome Projects (HGP) goal is to understand the genetic make-up of the human species by determining the DNA sequence of the human genome and the genome of a few model organisms. ... The Methuselah Mouse Prize or Mprize is a growing $3. ... In biology, senescence is the state or process of aging. ... Programmed cell death (PCD) is the deliberate suicide of an unwanted cell in a multicellular organism. ...

Both Theodore Modis and Jonathan Huebner have argued—each from different perspectives—that the rate of technological innovation has not only ceased to rise, but is actually now declining. The validity of their conclusions has been criticized by John Smart. Theodore Modis is a strategic business analyst, futurist, physicist, and international consultant. ... Jonathan Huebner is a physicist working at the Pentagons Naval Air Warfare Center, in China Lake, California. ... John Smart is a developmental systems theorist whose interests include accelerating change, computational autonomy, evolutionary development, and the technological singularity. ...

Choosing technological "milestones", defining the meaning of technological "growth", and similar semantic exercises often include significant subjectivity, and are therefore easily criticized. For example, it can be claimed that inventions are generally created by a fixed population of human inventors at a constant rate, regardless of their current technological prowess, and therefore technological "progress" is actually a function of population growth, not past inventions (at least until non-human inventors are invented).

In fact, "technological singularity" is just one of a few singularities detected through the analysis of a number of characteristics of the World System development, for example, with respect to the world population, world GDP, and some other economic indices.^[1] It has been shown^[2] that the exponential pattern of the world population and technology growth (observed for many centuries, if not millennia prior to the 1970s) could be accounted for by a rather simple mechanism, the nonlinear second order positive feedback, that was shown long ago to generate precisely the hyperbolic growth, known also as the "blow-up regime" (implying just finite-time singularities). In our case this nonlinear second order positive feedback looks as follows: more people – more potential inventors – faster technological growth – the carrying capacity of the Earth grows faster – faster population growth – more people – more potential inventors – faster technological growth, and so on. On the other hand, this research has shown that since the 1970s the World System does not develop hyperbolically any more, its development diverges more and more from the blow-up regime, and at present it is moving "from singularity", rather than "toward singularity". When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. ... Unlike former sociological theories, which presented general models of social change with particular focus at the societal level, world-systems theory (or world system perspective) explores the role and relationships between societies (and the subsequent changes produced by them). ... Map of countries by population — China and India, the only two countries to have a population greater than one billion, together possess more than a third of the worlds population. ... The term exponential may refer to any of several topics in mathematics: Exponential distribution Exponential function Exponential growth, exponential decay Exponential time Matrix exponential Exponential map (in differential geometry) All relate in some fashion to exponents. ... Positive feedback is a feedback system in which the system responds to the perturbation in the same direction as the perturbation (It is sometimes referred to as cumulative causation). ... When a quantity grows towards a singularity under a finite variation it is said to undergo hyperbolic growth. ... Positive feedback is a feedback system in which the system responds to the perturbation in the same direction as the perturbation (It is sometimes referred to as cumulative causation). ... The equilibrium maximum of the population of an organism is known as the ecosystems carrying capacity for that organism. ... Theoretical Human population increase from 10,000 BC – 2000 AD. Population growth is the change in population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals in a population per unit time. ...

Juergen Schmidhuber calls the Singularity Omega, referring to Teilhard de Chardin's Omega point (1916). For Omega = 2040 he says the series Omega - 2^n human lifetimes (n<10; one lifetime = 80 years) roughly matches the most important events in human history. But he also questions the validity of such lists, suggesting they just reflect a general rule for "both the individual memory of single humans and the collective memory of entire societies and their history books: constant amounts of memory space get allocated to exponentially larger, adjacent time intervals further and further into the past." He suggests that this may be the reason "why there has never been a shortage of prophets predicting that the end is near - the important events according to one's own view of the past always seem to accelerate exponentially." Jürgen Schmidhuber (born 1963 in Munich) is a computer scientist and artist known for his work on machine learning, universal Artificial Intelligence (AI), artificial neural networks, digital physics, and low-complexity art. ... Look up Ω, ω in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article needs cleanup. ... Omega point is a term invented by French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe the ultimate maximum level of complexity-consciousness, considered by him the aim towards which consciousness evolves. ... History is often used as a generic term for information about the past, such as in geologic history of the Earth. When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of human societies. ... Prophets may refer to: The Prophets (Neviim), which is the second of the three major sections in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). ...

Gallery

Kurzweil created the following graphs to illustrate his beliefs concerning and his justification for his Law of Accelerating Returns.

Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1196x948, 143 KB) Coutesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. ...

See also

• Technological singularity
• Simulated reality
• Diminishing returns
• Logarithmic timeline
• Quantum Improvement Method
• Manhood of Humanity by Alfred Korzybski

When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. ... Simulated reality is the idea that reality could be simulated — often computer-simulated — to a degree indistinguishable from true reality. ... In economics, diminishing returns is the short form of diminishing marginal returns. ... A logarithmic timeline, based on logarithmic scale, was developed by Heinz von Foerster, the philosopher and physicist. ... Quantum Improvement Method is a way to quickly find the types of technology and where to implement it in and organization to get exponential increases in productivity. ... Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski is a philosopher and scientist born on July 3, 1879 in Warsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire and died on March 1, 1950, in Lakeville, Connecticut, USA. He is probably best-remembered for developing the theory of general semantics. ...

Notes

Andrey Korotayev (born in 1961) is an anthropologist, economic historian, and sociologist. ...

References

• Essay: The Law of Accelerating Returns

External links

• Kurzweil's official site
• Essay: The Law of Accelerating Returns
• Is History Converging? Again? by Juergen Schmidhuber: singularity predictions as a side-effect of memory compression?
• Accelerating Technology
• Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends
• The Royal Mail Coach: Metaphor for a Changing World