The Future IS Exponential?

[cronus]

Due to projections on the Exponential growth rate of HIV infection, and the death rate due to AIDS based on figures from the 90s, the world now has a negative population.

A lot of dead men walking.

[MrJonno]

Actually there have been major breakthroughs in medicine. Two that come to mind immediately are stem cells and sRNA, but there are other areas also.

The thing about exponential growth is that the early stages of such growth do not seem to be doing much. But then suddenly there is an explosion of data and capability. Both stem cell therapies, and the use of sRNA treatments are still being developed. In due course - bang!

On the other hand, cancer deaths have dropped dramatically. At one time a diagnosis of cancer was a death knell. Today, it is merely a call for urgent medical treatment. Many cancers are totally curable, and many others have substantially increased survival. It has come a long, long way, and a lot of that progress is over the last couple decades.

Stem cells and even knowledge of DNA as you mentioned as still at pretty early stages. Most cancer treatments are still brutal irradiate/poison a large part of the body or just hack bits off. Yes they have got better but are still clearly primitive.

The really big medical advances in saving large numbers of lives are vaccinations with the main ones being available for a long time now along with organ transplants and the most common cancer drugs

It's 20-25 years to develop a new drug that unfortunately is not exponential growth

[MiM]

. There is nothing such as an exponential growth curve. They are all some form of S-curves. Humans just don't understand that the growth phase of many s-curves are indistinguishable from the exponential.

[cronus]

. There is nothing such as an exponential growth curve. They are all some form of S-curves. Humans just don't understand that the growth phase of many s-curves are indistinguishable from the exponential.

I was brought up with Laplace so never discount discontinuity in any graph myself. To be sure I've no idea how the magic works but it does each and every time once a system meets inoperable conditions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace_operator

[Blind groper]

The fact that a growth curve may turn into an S curve does not alter the fact that it is exponential for quite a long time. Computer development has been exponential for 50 years. While it will eventually level off, that does not change the fact that it is exponential right now.

On stem cells and sRNA.
The growth in these technologies is at an early stage, and thus, even though it is likely to be exponential, it is not yet dramatic. Exponential growth may go on for a long time without anyone noticing the incredible rate of progress. And then suddenly it seems to explode.

Medical diangnosis is another such. We now have such technologies as chemical analysis on a chip. Fluorescent marked antibodies for identifying tiny levels of bacteria and viruses. The first hand held medical analyser, or tricorder, is only a few years off. It will contain, among other things, a minaturised gas chromatograph which will analyse human breath, which can diagnose many ills, and will include the 'lab on a chip' to analyse blood, saliva, and urine.

Another development of the last couple decades, which revolutionised some branches of medicine (not to mention forensics) is the polymerase chain reaction.

The use of antibiotics to cure ulcers dates only to about 1990.

There are heaps of medical break throughs that happened in the last couple decades.

[Robert_S]

When does the law of diminishing returns overshadow the exponential growth of raw processing power?

[Blind groper]

To Robert.

The ultimate limit is laid down by the laws of physics. Currently computer designers are up against the laws of thermodynamics. ie. heat dissipation. If more transisters per cm3 are added, they will produce enough heat to melt them. There are still sneaky ways to get around this, but it is likely that diminishing returns will kick in soon, at least for traditional type computers.

[JimC]

Huh?

Forum software should automatically insert this after every Scrumple post...

[cronus]

Huh?

Forum software should automatically insert this after every Scrumple post...

The ultimate limit is knowing when to stop and retrench to focus on software development rather than raw processing power. Otherwise all you have is very fast dumb machine. Maybe that was the eighties when programming was interesting enough to be passed down the generations and heavily pixelated graphics in games meant imagination was still the king rather than the barbaric hyperviolent realism of today.

[JimC]

I always have the feeling that the words should mean something, but I can't quite put my finger on it...

[cronus]

I always have the feeling that the words should mean something, but I can't quite put my finger on it...

They are upside down, use a mirror.

[Jason]

Huh?

Forum software should automatically insert this after every Scrumple post...

The ultimate limit is knowing when to stop and retrench to focus on software development rather than raw processing power. Otherwise all you have is very fast dumb machine. Maybe that was the eighties when programming was interesting enough to be passed down the generations and heavily pixelated graphics in games meant imagination was still the king rather than the barbaric hyperviolent realism of today.

One does seem to follow the other, in practice. Perhaps some sort of super-heuristic would solve the problem of software development and pave the way for developing raw processing power? I have no idea. There was a time when I could figuratively lose myself in code, but I haven't written much for a long time and it was always seat of the pants coding. Compiler warnings are for sissies!

Or am I missing the point?

[cronus]

Huh?

Forum software should automatically insert this after every Scrumple post...

The ultimate limit is knowing when to stop and retrench to focus on software development rather than raw processing power. Otherwise all you have is very fast dumb machine. Maybe that was the eighties when programming was interesting enough to be passed down the generations and heavily pixelated graphics in games meant imagination was still the king rather than the barbaric hyperviolent realism of today.

One does seem to follow the other, in practice. Perhaps some sort of super-heuristic would solve the problem of software development and pave the way for developing raw processing power? I have no idea. There was a time when I could figuratively lose myself in code, but I haven't written much for a long time and it was always seat of the pants coding. Compiler warnings are for sissies!

Or am I missing the point?

Yeah, BASIC even should do it since the driving force is human imagination and creative insight. Only way to avoid pretend programming and avoid losing the interesting stuff is to be one step from the machine code and a long way from the modern brain dead apps-push a button-logic....I was using FORTH though in the eighties...never any good at following the herd.

[Clinton Huxley]

Most new drugs cost umpty-bajillion guineas to develop and either don't work or are a marginal improvement on the old ones. As they say in the industry, the low-hanging fruit has been gathered. We'll all die from some horrible brain-rotting virus while the pharma companies are working on a cure for "Made-up wobbly eyelid syndrome"

[cronus]

Most new drugs cost umpty-bajillion guineas to develop and either don't work or are a marginal improvement on the old ones. As they say in the industry, the low-hanging fruit has been gathered. We'll all die from some horrible brain-rotting virus while the pharma companies are working on a cure for "Made-up wobbly eyelid syndrome"

That's the point. Only the very smartest will survive the coming dumb years. Welcome to WWZ.