Does Human Knowledge Double Every 5 Years?

Time to Get Serious

If you type the search string "human knowledge doubles every five years" into Google today, it will return about 1,580,000 results.

The first result is from a Bellagio newsletter reporting on a conference, and it uses the sentence as if it were a given. The second is from President Clinton's 1998 speech to the AAS, where he asserts it as a given. The first post in this weblog quotes from it.

The third result is why I started this weblog. Here is part of the opening from The Low Beyond, by Eliezer Yudkowsky.

1: The End of History

It began three and a half billion years ago in a pool of muck, when a molecule made a copy of itself and so became the ultimate ancestor of all earthly life.

It began four million years ago, when brain volumes began climbing rapidly in the hominid line.

Fifty thousand years ago with the rise of Homo sapiens sapiens.
Ten thousand years ago with the invention of civilization.
Five hundred years ago with the invention of the printing press.
Fifty years ago with the invention of the computer.

In less than thirty years, it will end.

At some point in the near future, someone will come up with a method of increasing the maximum intelligence on the planet - either coding a true Artificial Intelligence or enhancing human intelligence.  An enhanced human would be better at thinking up ways of enhancing humans; would have an "increased capacity for invention".  What would this increased ability be directed at?  Creating the next generation of enhanced humans.

And what would those doubly enhanced minds do?  Research methods on triply enhanced humans, or build AI minds operating at computer speeds.  And an AI would be able to reprogram itself, directly, to run faster - or smarter.  And then our crystal ball explodes, "life as we know it" is over, and everything we know goes out the window. "

Yudkowsky, like Ray Kurzweil and other advocates of what is known as the Singularity, extrapolates progress in computing sciences from past performance increases in computer efficiency, networking and falling prices for computation and memory. At some point in our lifetimes, computing will be so fast, so efficient, so networked and have access to so much memory, that we will be able to create artificial intelligence (AI). We will then be able to assign this AI the task of creating an even better computing machine, as well as assisting human intelligence in solving real world problems. Because of the increased capabilities of AI (which include indefatiguability and no need for coffe breaks as well as very high intelligence and concentration), progress will be so rapid that life as we know it will change dramatically and in a very short timeframe.

I really want this to be true. But I am afraid that a) we are exaggerating our progress on many fronts and b) even if we can build this better box, we will need to improve our knowledge exponentially before the box is built so we know what to put into it. And I see no evidence as yet that we'll be able to fill the box.

We'll be talking a lot about this--and I hope to involve some of the protagonists in the discussion. But if this isn't your cup of tea, you can adjust your visits to this site accordingly.

Why This is Important (I hope)

I don't fear death. And I won't fear death--unless and until there is an alternative.

A group of scientists and science popularizers are creating the expectation of an alternative to death. It's a pretty important concept, and a powerful hope to offer. The account I've read most recently is by Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Near. (If you're shopping from the UK, as I do, click here.) Kurzweil, as well as many of the other popularizers of the exponential growth of knowledge, argues that... well, something is growing so fast that within the lifetimes of many of us, machine generated knowledge will sort of take over from us. I'll be talking a lot about that 'something' in future posts.

For now, let me just say that if human knowledge is not doubling quickly enough to give exponential growth rates, a lot of what these people predict kinda falls on its face. Now, I want this future to come to pass--it holds too many potential benefits to ignore or wish away. (I do wish, however, that a more manageable version of this idea was available). But it all depends on the exponential growth of human knowledge.

Now, these people (and I'll be naming who I'm talking about later) talk a lot about exponential growth in information technology, etc., and I can well believe that the price of computing and storage is dropping exponentially. In fact, I know it has from personal experience. But having free memory (stored on a free weblog server, for example) and infinitely fast access to that memory does not mean a blessed thing if I don't have useful information to store and/or access.

So what's at stake is our future--gee, that sounds somewhat dramatic. But a lot of people who read these Singularity/Immortality/SENS/etc. protagonists need to know if this is science or science fiction. I'm one of those who need to know. That's why I'm doing this. Just so you know.

It Should Be Lumpy, Right?

We wouldn't expect a uniform doubling of human knowledge within a 5-year timeframe, right? Even if this is a law as inexorable as Moore's (and that doesn't seem as inexorable as it once was, or am I reading the Dell ads wrong?), one would reasonably expect that human knowledge would advance a little in some areas and a lot in others. You with me?

Given what the world's attention has been focused on since 2002, here are some of the areas where I think human knowledge should have increased fastest:

• Epidemiology, thanks to SARS and Avian flu
• Biofuels
• Vaccines
• Proteome
• Oil extraction from rock and shale
• Mars
• Genetically Modified Organisms
• Fishery management
• Global warming
• Solar activity
• The Long Tail
• Stem cell cultivation
• Infectious diseases

I will treat this as a proxy list of subject areas to explore. I'm going to be digging around to see if we've seen dramatic advances in any or all of these. I'll probably dedicate a few posts to each of them. Got any suggestions?