When Boneheads Predict the Future
Jonathan Huebner, a physicist at the US Naval Air Warfare Center in California has proof that we're heading to an innovation dark age in 2024. His prediction came out of comparing 7200 arbitrarily selected innovations over the time with the global population. Huebner asserts that since the innovation/population rate is declining, we've reached the peak of technology fueled innovation. Although in all fairness, he doesn't believe we'll sink in medieval anarchy, as we will still be generating more innovations than the dark ages had -- it's just the rate that has declined.
Coming out of the woodwork to counter this absurd claim are a bunch of critics, including Ray Kurzweil, who just wants to reassert his claim of the future that states we are heading to a technological singularity -- a point where change will occur so fast, that we will be unable to predict the future direction of innovation.
These guys carry degrees and have invented a great many things that attest to their smarts -- yet, they're no seer. Their future seems to forget innovation itself isn't a perpetual machine, devoid of human and environmental interaction. I would argue that innovation is mitigated by the interaction of people and their environment -- there is a social aspect to innovation that everyone seems to forget. Innovation won't occur at a runaway pace, and neither will it slow to a stop. Its pace is dictated by the wants, needs, and whims of society -- whether that is a conscious choice or not. Our capacity to accept innovation is what drives the pace.
Coming out of the woodwork to counter this absurd claim are a bunch of critics, including Ray Kurzweil, who just wants to reassert his claim of the future that states we are heading to a technological singularity -- a point where change will occur so fast, that we will be unable to predict the future direction of innovation.
These guys carry degrees and have invented a great many things that attest to their smarts -- yet, they're no seer. Their future seems to forget innovation itself isn't a perpetual machine, devoid of human and environmental interaction. I would argue that innovation is mitigated by the interaction of people and their environment -- there is a social aspect to innovation that everyone seems to forget. Innovation won't occur at a runaway pace, and neither will it slow to a stop. Its pace is dictated by the wants, needs, and whims of society -- whether that is a conscious choice or not. Our capacity to accept innovation is what drives the pace.
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