You are thinking on too small a scale. We will not have PCs, we will
be PCs. An interesting read for you would be
The Singularity is Near by Raymond Kurzweil. In 1987, Kurzweil wrote
The Age of Intelligent Machines, which, among other things, made many predictions that have since come true that seemed crazy at the time (for example, that a computer would beat a human chess champion) based on his Law of Accelerating Returns. The Law states that technological progress occurs exponentially instead of linearly, meaning that each new advancement enables several higher advancements instead of just one higher advancement, and concordantly, every year, more useful inventions and discoveries are made than were made in the last.
The Law of Accelerating Returns has a very important consequence in that extrapolation of exponentially improving technology trends into the future suggests, by Kurzweil's analysis, that highly advanced technologies will arrive far sooner than linear-thinking people assume. The creation of the modern Internet and the completion of the Human Genome Project are prominent examples illustrative of this point. Both were multi-year projects that relied on computer technology to reach completion. In both cases, critics derided them as hopeless since, in the beginning, both relied on computers that would have taken decades to process all of the necessary data. However, these critics had failed to take into account the exponentially improving nature of computer processing speeds and price-performance, and thus failed to see that, within a few years, the two projects would have access to vastly superior computers that would drastically shorten their timelines for completion.
Kurzweil understands that a linear view of historical progress and of anticipated future change is instinctive to the average human mind, but insists that it is wrong.
In
The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil makes predictions about the 21st century, saying, "An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense 'intuitive linear' view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century—it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate)."
You can read all of Kurzweil's predictions
here, but the most important one is that we will reach a
technological singularity in around 2045.
Kurzweil says The Singularity occurs as artificial intelligences surpass human beings as the smartest and most capable life forms on the Earth. Technological development is taken over by the machines, who can think, act and communicate so quickly that normal humans cannot even comprehend what is going on; thus the machines, acting in concert with those humans who have evolved into humanoid androids, achieve effective world domination. The machines enter into a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, with each new generation of A.I.s appearing faster and faster. From this point onwards, technological advancement is explosive, under the control of the machines, and thus cannot be accurately predicted. The Singularity is an extremely disruptive, world-altering event that forever changes the course of human history. The extermination of humanity by violent machines is unlikely (though not impossible) because sharp distinctions between man and machine will no longer exist thanks to the existence of cybernetically enhanced humans and uploaded humans.
Whether or not Korzweil is exactly accurate in all of his predictions, it seems almost certain that the world 100 years from now will be nothing like it is today.
Edited by stettybet0, 18 March 2009 - 03:24 PM.
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