Entering an exponential revolution age & Thinking exponentially
Now, consider Moore’s Law as defined in 1975 which, according to Wikipedia, “describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware, in which the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years.” The law itself, without going in details, still holds true today (although some now argue that the law will reach its theoretical limit in terms of transistor growth density once it reaches the atomic level - nevertheless, let’s assume that the law still holds true for now and will do so for a while longer). Since then, Moore’s Law has been updated to mention “performance is doubling every 18 months” instead of density doubling every 2 years as originally asserted.
Moore’s Law has been proven to hold true on many different occasions during the exponential growth of computing performance, going from electromechanical, relays, to vacuum tubes, single transistors and integrated circuits onto complex multilayer microprocessors. As multiple studies have demonstrated, computing performances has doubled every 18 months on average over the past few decades. Thus, for purposes of this article, as we are more interested in the increase in performance than the increase in density of the processors, we will therefore entertain the idea of doubling processing performance every 18 months (a cycle).
What will Exponential Computer Performance concretely mean for the next 50 years?
It means that if Moore’s Law holds true and computing performance continues to increase at this pace, 45 years from now, the performance of your home computer will be 1 billion or 1,000,000,000 times faster!!! (Calculated using 30 cycles of exponential growth, each cycle being 18 months in length)
We can also apply this hypothesis to the increase in storage performance (capacity and speed) that you will have on your home computer when compared to today. By combining the increase in processing power and storage space at an exponential growth, you will have the equivalent of a very large data center at home in less than 45 years and at the price of what a computer costs today - about $1,000.
Still doubtful this could happen? A few days before publishing this article, Intel released the news that they were able to create a microprocessor containing 48 cores. Simply put, imagine the power of 48 computers on a single chip (it gets slightly more complex, but for illustration purpose, this is a valid approximation). Intel doesn’t plan on stopping there either, as they aim to put 100+ cores on a single chip. This is the Exponential Revolution.
Let’s look at some concrete examples of what this all means in our lives through the profound changes that will come from the DNA and brain research.
We’ve already seen the significant impact that exponential growth in computer performance has had in the domain of Genetic Engineering or Genomics (DNA research). Take, for example, the Human Genome Project: Starting in 1990, this $3 billion USD project, involving participants from multiple countries, had a stated goal of decoding the entire DNA chain / sequence within 15 years. Many experts were at first quite sceptical about the chances of achieving that goal; especially after the first year during which progress was very small. However, since computer processing performance kept increasing at exponential growth over the duration of the project, it only took 13 years to complete (10 years if you only count how long it took to achieve the first draft - see note 1), in other words, two years ahead of schedule.
An interesting article appeared in Fortune Magazine on September 1st 2008 (page 46), arguing that with today’s computers able to perform calculations much faster, a research laboratory can sequence (decode) the entire DNA of anyone in approximately six weeks at a price tag ranging from $100,000 to $300,000. The article takes note of a California based start-up company called Pacific Biosciences that has set a goal of offering a commercially / publically available DNA scan costing only $1,000 that could be completed in 15 minutes by 2013. Although one could argue that this aggressive goal may not be attainable by 2013, it is nevertheless a clear example of an Exponential Revolution in research. It will happen sooner than later.
The eventual and publically available decoding of the DNA sequence at an affordable price combined with sophisticated computer analysis using much faster computer performance than we have today will bring tons of new data that will definitely help researchers around the globe to find cures for viruses, cancers and other health and mental disorders.