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“What we spend our time on is probably the most important decision we make.”– RAY KURZWEIL

“A successful person isn’t necessarily better than her less successful peers at solving problems; her pattern-recognition facilities have just learned what problems are worth solving.”
– RAY KURZWEIL

“Every one of today’s smartphones has thousands of times more processing power than the computers that guided astronauts to the moon.”
– PETER THIEL

“It’s good to test yourself and develop your talents and ambitions as fully as you can and achieve greater success; but I think success is the feeling you get from a job well done, and the key thing is to do the work.”– PETER THIEL

Gordon Moore, a co-founder of the company Intel, changed the technology world forever. He predicted in a magazine that the speed and efficiency of chip elements, or transistors, in a computer would increase exponentially in the upcoming years. As his theory became true, Moore’s Law was created. Not only did these transistors increase in speed and efficiency, but they also decreased in size. According to the C Net article, the reason that this industry is so far ahead technologically is because the physical size does not limit its ability to improve. To further explain, the chip itself can only get so small, but even at its smallest point its speed and efficiency can get faster and better. The technology involved with planes and cars cannot increase as fast as computers because more physical aspects are involved (such as weight) that limit its abilities. Something that I found very interesting was that the computer industry has increased so fast that if cars progressed at the same rate, they would be able to go 300,000 miles per hour. This just shows how fast these transistors have improved over a short period of time. There are some doubts, however, about Moore’s Law. Some people, including Moore himself, say it is impossible to increase exponentially forever. There are certain limits that you cannot go past. Although I see the point that people are trying to make, they said this many years ago, and technology has continued to increase. It makes me wonder when technology will truly hit its peak.

Buckminster Fuller was known for many things, one of them being that he was an inventor. He wanted to improve society by doing more with less. He created the dymaxion car, bathroom, and house which was efficient and did not do harm to the environment. The invention he was most well-known for is the geodesic dome. He looked at nature’s geometric designs and applied it to his creation. This was so successful that his dome is still used all over the world today including on children’s playgrounds and as homes. I was a bit surprised while watching the CBS Sunday Morning video when it talked about how sturdy and safe the dome is as a home. It is the most energy efficient structure and is hurricane, earthquake, tornado, and fire proof. In addition to these inventions, Buckminster Fuller came up with the idea of the Knowledge Doubling Curve. Similar to Moore’s idea of exponential growth, Fuller noticed that people’s knowledge is increasing faster and faster. Our knowledge went from doubling every century in the 1800’s, to doubling every twenty-five years, to (predicted to be) doubling every twelve hours. There is no doubt that this rapid increase of people’s knowledge is due to technological improvements.

This exponential increase in knowledge and technology brings me to the next idea of singularity, or artificial intelligence, which was brought to the world’s attention by Ray Kurzweil. Today he is known for his text-to-voice computer speaking software such as Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri. In the past, he made predictions that seemed crazy at the time because no one believed technology would ever reach the point of beating a person at chess, being accessed wirelessly, or allowing the disabled to walk. All these predictions, and more, became true which makes the idea of artificial intelligence seem possible. Will computers, phones, TVs, etc., eventually take on a life of their own? I think this is a possibility that I find both intriguing and unsettling. Many sci-fi movies make it seem as if this is a bad thing where the computes and robots will take over the world. Perhaps this can happen, but there is also the possibility that it will benefit our society. I am interested to see what the future holds. Also, Kurzweil introduces the Law of Accelerating Returns by talking about Moore’s Law and how, although famous, it is not special. Apparently other types of technology, in addition to a computer chips, have shown exponential growth such as magnetic data storage and the growth in DNA sequence data. Also, Kurzweil discusses his belief of technology being an evolutionary process. It occurs, however, much faster than humans or other species. Each generation takes an invention or piece of technology and adds to it to become better. There are more and more improvements made to all types of technology which benefit one another. For example, not only are cell phones improving but also the tools used to build the phone. We went from hands on work to machinery in factories doing all the work for us.

Peter Thiel is also famous in the technology world due to his co-creation of PayPal and his contribution to Facebook. His agrees with Moore, Fuller, and Kurzweil that technology is advancing, however, he thinks it is for the wrong reasons. His famous quote, “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters” captures his feelings towards our use of technology in society. Rather than helping in fields such as medicine or transportation, there are technological advances in less important areas such as social media. The Founder’s Fund invests in four main areas in which they believe will make a positive contribution to society. The first is aerospace and transportation because the cost to send something into orbit has not changed since the 1960s and the time to cross the Atlantic has increased rather than decreased. Next is biotechnology where the foundation hopes to create a new era of plentiful medicine. I think this is one of the most important areas because this involves people’s health and can be the difference between life and death. The next area is advanced machines and software. This involves robots, analytical software, and artificial intelligence. The last area of investment is energy where Thiel believes we have been trying to invest in the same energies (wind and solar) which is “not ambitious enough.” He wants there to be a big breakthrough where it is cheaper than fossil fuels. I agree with Thiel that we have been focusing so much on the next best social media or next best graphics of a video game that we lost sight of what matters most. We have the ability to improve all these areas (and more) if we just apply our knowledge and create technology to make the world a better place.

Category: Uncategorized

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Notes

“Did You Know 2017” Video Notes

My Narrated PowerPoint

Kurzweil & Thiel Quotes

Fuller Summary

Group Websites

Summary and Reaction to Technology in Today’s Society

The Journey Begins